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When it comes to planetary dynamics, Uranus has been eccentric among all the worlds sitting in our solar system. The ice giant is subjected to much lower temperatures than Neptune, which is further in the vicinity, and is laterally tilted – a strange feature that has puzzled scientists around the world.
Over the years, astronomers have observed the poles of Uranus are not aligned with the sun as the planet rotates on its side. This feature clearly differentiated the planet from its planetary siblings, but the cause of this inclination was only a mystery until an international team led by scientists from the University of Durham, UK, comes to the rescue.
Since it is highly unlikely that Uranus was so, several scenarios have been suggested for explain the inclination. The most sustained theory was that of a massive collision, in which a celestial body broke the planet to the side. However, an interaction like this is supposed to strip the atmosphere of the planet, which in this particular case is always present.
Uranus turns on its side, its axis being almost perpendicular to that of all the other planets. in the solar system, "said Jacob Kegerreis, the main author of the last work, in a statement." This was certainly caused by a giant impact, but we know very little about how it actually happened and how such a violent event has affected the planet. "
That's why, to dive into this collision, Kegerreis and his team ran a series of high-resolution simulations that they explored until they 50 destruction scenarios to determine the best explaining the tilt and freezing conditions that currently prevail on the planet.
The results of the study revealed about four billion years ago when the solar system was going through a chaotic period, the phase and the planetary bodies were still in place, a protoplanet – a world in the process of forming – made of ice and rock could have hit a pasture on Uranus. 9002] According to the simulations, the protoplanet would have been twice as big as our Earth, which means that the interaction was probably strong enough to strike Uranus (14 times more than Earth) but not enough to strip the atmosphere of the planet.
The violent collision, like the suggested simulations, affected the evolution of Uranus. Billions of years have followed and shaped the planet in what it is today. Essentially, the team discovered that debris from the impacting planet could have formed a thin shell near the edge of the Uranus ice cover. This shell, according to the researchers, may have trapped the heat of the core and helped cool temperatures on the planet.
This collision even explains the formation of the inner Uranian moons. During the simulation, the team discovered that the interaction between the protoplanet and Uranus would have projected rock and ice on the orbit of the planet. This material then coalesced, bringing the moons to existence.
The study titled "Consequences of Giant Impacts on Early Uranus for Rotation, Internal Structure, Debris and Atmospheric Erosion" was published on July 2 in the following year. Astrophysical Journal
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