Uranus is often considered the strangest planet in our solar system.

But a new study suggests the gas giant may not be as strange as previously thought.

Researchers at University College London (UCL) say the mysteries surrounding Uranus could be the result of an unusually powerful solar storm that occurred just as a spacecraft was visiting the planet.

This spacecraft – NASA’s Voyager 2 – flew by Uranus in 1986 and provided the first close-up glimpse of the planet.

And since then, no spaceship has returned.

“Almost everything we know about Uranus is based on the two-day Voyager 2 flyby,” said co-author Dr. William Dunn.

“This new study shows that much of the planet’s bizarre behavior can be explained by the magnitude of the space weather event that occurred during this visit.”

Based on these results, researchers are calling for a return mission to Uranus to find out what the planet actually looks like when it’s not in the middle of a solar storm.

Uranus is often considered the strangest planet in our solar system. But a new study suggests the gas giant may not be as strange as previously thought.

Researchers at University College London (UCL) say the mysteries surrounding Uranus could be the result of an unusually powerful solar storm that occurred just as a spacecraft was visiting the planet.

In January 1986, NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first, and so far only, spacecraft to explore Uranus.

The mission took the first images of Uranus – but also discovered several oddities.

Uranus’s radiation belts were found to be incredibly intense, while its magnetosphere was almost empty of plasma.

This meant that there was no apparent source of charged particles to power these intense belts.

In their new study, the researchers found that a “hurricane” of extreme solar weather could explain this result.

The hurricane likely crushed Uranus’ magnetosphere, pushing plasma out of it and intensifying the radiation belts by injecting electrons.

And Uranus itself wasn’t the only celestial object affected by this event.

Uranus’ five moons have long been considered dead worlds due to the planet’s nearly empty magnetosphere.

NASA’s Voyager 2 took the first images of Uranus – but also discovered several oddities. Uranus’ radiation belts were found to be incredibly intense, while its magnetosphere was almost empty of plasma. This meant that there was no apparent source of charged particles to power these belts.

But the new findings suggest that moons might be geologically active after all – and might even have oceans.

“If Voyager 2 had arrived a few days earlier, it would have observed a completely different magnetosphere at Uranus,” said Dr. Jamie Jasinski of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), who led the study.

“The spacecraft saw Uranus under conditions that only occur about 4% of the time.”

Based on these results, the researchers are calling for a new – carefully studied – mission to Uranus.

“We now know even less than we thought about what a typical day in the Uranian system might look like and we even more need a second spacecraft to visit to truly understand this mysterious and icy world,” said Dr Dunn .

“The lack of detection of water-related particles around the planet provides important evidence for the existence of oceans on Uranus’ moons: Voyager 2 did not find water ions.

“But now we can explain this: the solar storm would have taken away all this material.”

“The design of NASA’s next flagship mission to Uranus must be carefully considered in the context of these findings.”

“For example, we might want instruments that can detect surges in the magnetic field coming from a moon’s salty ocean and instruments that can measure all the particles in the system to test whether we find water or other important materials from the moons.”

HOW DOES URANUS’ MAGNETIC FIELD COMPARE TO EARTH’S?

A study analyzing data collected more than 30 years ago by the Voyager 2 space probe has revealed that Uranus’s overall magnetosphere is nothing like that of Earth, which is known to be nearly aligned with the axis of rotation of our planet.

A false-color view of Uranus captured by Hubble is shown

According to researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, this alignment would give rise to behavior very different from that observed around the Earth.

Uranus lies and rotates on its side, leaving its magnetic field tilted 60 degrees from its axis.

As a result, the magnetic field “flips” asymmetrically relative to the solar wind.

As a result, the magnetic field “flips” asymmetrically relative to the solar wind.

When the magnetosphere is open, it lets in the solar wind.

But when it closes, it creates a shield against these particles.

Researchers suspect that the reconnection of the solar wind is taking place upstream of Uranus’ magnetosphere at different latitudes, causing the magnetic flux to close in various parts.