They discover why Uranus is so cold and inclined

Uranus the seventh planet in the solar system, was hit by a mbadive object that was about twice the size of the Earth, which tipped it and could explain its freezing temperatures, such as as published Astrophysical Journal .

Astronomers from the British University of Durham led an international team of experts who studied how the tilt of Uranus occurred and the consequences that the gigantic impact could have had on the evolution. For this, they made fifty hundred high-resolution computer simulations of various types of large collisions against the frozen giant to try to find out how it evolved.

The investigations confirmed an earlier study, according to which the inclined position of Uranus was caused by a collision with a mbadive object, a young protoplanet made of ice and rock ] during the formation of the solar system 4 billion years ago.

The simulations also suggest that the remnants of the impactor could form a thin shell near the edge of the ice cap and capturing the heat emanating from the planet's nucleus.

Capturing this internal heat can, in part, help explain the planet's extremely cold outer atmosphere at 216 degrees, according to the researchers.

The principal of the study, Jacob Kegerreis of the University of Durham, indicated that Uranus rotates laterally, with its axis pointing almost perpendicular to the rest of the planets of the Solar System [19659003] "This was caused, almost safety, for a gigantic impact", but "very little" is still known about how it actually happened and how this type of violent shock affected the planet, he added in an academic statement

. Simulations "confirm that the most likely outcome was that the young man Uranus was affected by a catastrophic collision that an object that had twice the mbad of the Earth, or even larger, l & # 39; Put on the side and let go of events that helped create the planet we see today. "

The study could also help explain the formation of rings and moons from Uranus as simulations suggest that the impact could throw ice and rocks placed in orbit around the planet