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From The Washington Post :
Scientists used to think that things were pretty chill over in the south hemisphere of Uranus. In fact, they thought it was one of the calmest regions of any of the gas giants. But in analyzing images taken nearly three decades ago by NASA's Voyager-2 spacecraft, researchers think they've found a kerfuffle of activity — which might indicate that there's something unusual about the planet's interior.
...
Karkoshchka believes that Uranus's southern hemisphere rotates in a way never before seen in gas giants. A gas planet's thick atmosphere, filled with clouds, typically shows the same rate of rotation at the top and bottom. But on Uranus, it seems, the southern hemisphere is cycling much more quickly than up north — as much as 15 percent faster.
"The unusual rotation of high southern latitudes of Uranus is probably due to an unusual feature in the interior of Uranus," Karkoshcka said in a statement. "While the nature of the feature and its interaction with the atmosphere are not yet known, the fact that I found this unusual rotation offers new possibilities to learn about the interior of a giant planet."
Data on gas giants in general are few and far between, so anything that Karkoshcka can glean about Uranus's core would help scientists understand the other planets like it.
All jokes aside, what is it that could be causing this unusual behavior?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 21 2015, @09:53PM
I've been saying the most obvious space exploration to put among the top priorities, if not the very top, is two orbiters, one for Uranus and one for Neptune. But, for whatever reason, we have Juno, which will be the second orbiter to study Jupiter, arriving in 2016, while plans for Uranus and Neptune are all many years out. For Uranus, the most likely plan currently is to launch an orbiter in 2025, to arrive in 2037. For Neptune, there was a 2005 proposal to launch an orbiter sometime this decade, but it was canceled. There is this proposed ODINUS program, to launch orbiters to both planets around 2034.
As to the jokes, do we have to rename the planet? Sol g? VII? Ouranos? Caelus? Georgium Sidus?? I guess time will eventually end them. How long have these jokes been made? Ever since Freud's works, with the "anal stage" became part of the popular consciousness?