Uranus seasons (VIDEO)
Caption
Animation of seasonal changes in colour on Uranus during two Uranus years (one Uranus year is 84.02 Earth years), running from 1900 to 2068 and starting just before southern summer solstice, when Uranus’s south pole points almost directly towards the Sun. The left-hand disc shows the appearance of Uranus to the naked eye, while the right-hand disc has been colour stretched and enhanced to make atmospheric features clearer. In this animation, Uranus's spin has been slowed down by over 3000 times so that the planetary rotation can be seen, with discrete storm clouds seen passing across the planet’s disc. As the planet moves towards its solstices a pale polar ‘hood’ of increasing cloud opacity and reduced methane abundance can be seen filling more of the planet’s disc leading to seasonal changes in the overall colour of the planet. The changing size of Uranus's disc is due to Uranus's distance from the Sun changing during its orbit. Credit: Patrick Irwin, University of Oxford.
Credit
Patrick Irwin, University of Oxford.
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