This Is Why Uranus Is A Different Color To Neptune Say Scientists

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Astronomers using three telescopes—one of them the Hubble Space Telescope—have at last solved the mystery of why Uranus and Neptune are different colors.

It’s haze.

Seventh planet Uranus and eighth planet Neptune are both regarded as gas giants and they have similar masses, sizes, and atmospheric compositions. However, while Uranus is a shade of cyan, Neptune is unmistakably blue.

Using observations from the Gemini North telescope, the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers came up with an atmospheric model that works for both, but which results in a lot of haze on Uranus.

If the atmosphere of Uranus wasn’t as stagnant then it would be much bluer, claim the researchers, whose paper is published today in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Methane snow is found deep in the atmospheres of both planets. However, Neptune has a more turbulent atmosphere, so churns-up more snow, which removes the haze.

It’s the first model of the gas planets’ atmospheres that has been able to include haze particles within deeper layers, which were previously thought to be clouds of methane and hydrogen sulfide ices.

It was a serendipitous discovery.

“We hoped that developing this model would help us understand clouds and hazes in the ice giant atmospheres,” said Mike Wong, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, who is one of the researchers. “Explaining the difference in color between Uranus and Neptune was an unexpected bonus!”

The observations using the three telescopes were done in ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared wavelengths.

As well as solving the mystery of the color difference between Uranus and Neptune the new model also explained why the latter sometimes has dark spots on its surface.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

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