Scientists sniffing round Uranus uncover huge icy secret in its deep inside
Scientists studying Uranus have found carbon monoxide, suggesting the mysterious planet is packed with a massive icy secret rather than a rocky core
Astronomers sniffing around Uranus have cracked open a massive icy secret (Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Astronomers sniffing around Uranus have cracked open a massive icy secret buried deep inside the mysterious planet. New data suggests the cosmic oddball is packed with way more frozen water than anyone previously thought, potentially settling a long-running galactic argument over whether it was born differently from its closest neighbour, Neptune.
Both Uranus and Neptune are classified as “ice giants,” but because they are wrapped in thick, choking blankets of gas, peering inside them is almost impossible. Instead, space experts have examined the gases in their outer atmospheres to figure out what is lurking deep within.
Usually, finding carbon monoxide in a planet’s atmosphere means its core is absolutely loaded with water and ice. But while Neptune is packed with the stuff, Uranus has always seemed to be lacking.
It led to a fierce debate among space boffins, with some arguing Uranus is actually just a giant, rocky ball. If true, it would mean the two neighbouring planets formed in completely different ways.
A team led by Thibault Cavalié at the University of Bordeaux in France has now detected carbon monoxide in Uranus’s lower atmosphere for the very first time. And it turns out, the planet is completely frozen.
Cavalié said: “We find that Uranus is more on the ice-giant side than on the rock-giant side. It tells us that this controversy is over now.
“We have to be careful when we say things like that, because things also depend on modelling, but that’s the feeling we have.”
The breakthrough came after the team pointed the high-tech Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope in Chile at the planet between 2022 and 2024.
After running the data through various computer simulations, they found that the only way Uranus could have this much carbon monoxide is if its core is stuffed with ice, not rock.
Interestingly, the experts also found carbon monoxide floating around in Uranus’s upper atmosphere, but they don’t think it came from inside the planet.
Instead, Cavalié believes it was blasted there by a rogue comet smashing into the planet hundreds of years ago. However, not everyone is convinced the case is completely closed.
Vanesa Ramirez, a scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, warned that trying to figure out what is happening deep inside Uranus still involves a lot of guesswork.
She said: “Interpreting atmospheric abundances requires assumptions about chemistry, mixing and internal structure, all of which remain uncertain for Uranus.”
She argues that because there are so many different ways to model the planet’s interior, we can’t be 100 per cent sure of the exact recipe just yet.
Ramirez added: “On its own, it does not settle the question of whether Uranus should be regarded primarily as an ice-rich or rock-rich giant.”
