The previously neglected planet Uranus may have received a visitor for the first time in decades. NASA should launch a massive space research campaign, according to a new report from a panel of American planetary scientists. The agency is likely to always follow panel advice.
Uranus equipment will be the first since Voyager 2 roamed the frozen body in 1986. This discovery might reveal how the planet, its rings, and moons formed and evolved over billions of years.
“This work will change completely,” said Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who worked on the April 19 report, published by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington. DC. Uranus is full of scientific mysteries, such as why it revolves around its side and how it forms a complex magnetic field. In general, reading about Uranus can provide details about the planets orbiting other stars; of more than 5,000 known exoplanets, the most common being the size of Uranus.
Some astronomers have recently called on the cosmos to send a massive exploration to Uranus or Neptune, which also last visited Voyager 2, in 1989. Both planets are ‘icy giants’, composed of masses of glaciers that orbit the earth. a small stone spine. But Neptune did not decide on the report. “Uranus is ranked high because technology can now be accessed,” said Simon.
Uranus equipment may start with the Falcon Heavy commercial rocket, a type of launch vehicle already in operation. The launch could come as early as 2031, the first day when a spacecraft can be designed and built on it, if it is fully funded. The spacecraft to Neptune, farther away from Earth than Uranus, may need a larger rocket, such as NASA’s Space Launch System, before it can launch.
The report proposes a campaign that will launch an investigation into Uranus to explore mysteries such as what causes the strong winds blowing in its atmosphere, composed of hydrogen, helium and methane. The spacecraft would spend years flying around the planet, collecting sightings in features such as the magnetic field that may have enlightened Uranus’ glorious aurora. “We’re talking about a campaign to study the entire Uranus system,” said Mark Hofstadter, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The machines will test some of Uranus’ 27 known moons – perhaps Titania and Oberon, large enough to have water under the ice, or a marked Phoebe and spotted Puck. Collectively, the orbiter and research “will provide an amazing range of new science”, said Heidi Hammel, vice president of science at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy in Washington DC. “I can go on and on.”
Big planet, big price tag
If NASA decides to pursue the Uranus mission, which could cost $ 4.2 billion, it could find a partner in the European Space Agency (ESA). In 2021, the ESA published a preliminary study that included a proposal for an agency to partner with another space agency to learn about the giant ice planet.
“The key question now is whether there is a gap in the national budget and the ESA science program for ambitious cooperation,” said Leigh Fletcher, a planetary scientist at the University of Leicester, in the UK. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
The new US report covers many aspects of planetary exploration and is likely to guide the decisions of NASA and the US National Science Foundation in the coming years. Its second highest priority is the flagship planet, after Uranus, explores Saturn’s moon Enceladus, with flowing water from the buried ocean. Those machines would send a substitute for Enceladus to pick up one of the wooden objects and look for evidence of life.
Space-rock observations have been studied
For the first time, the report analyzed NASA’s plans to protect the Earth from deadly asteroids. It advises the agency to launch a campaign to find asteroids near Earth as soon as possible – a project NASA recently announced that will be delayed by two years, to 2028, to save money.
And the report highlights the negative state of equity and inclusion in US planetary science. It notes that scientists from small ethnic and racial groups often face discrimination and that the leadership of planetary machines does not show proper diversity. Only 5% of scientists who proposed sending a planet to NASA between 2014 and 2020 were identified as part of a highly underrepresented society. The last decade, the report states, has been “alarming.”
Source Journal Reference: Alexandra Witze, Next stop, Uranus? Icy planet tops priority list for next big NASA mission, Nature 604, 607 (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01087-2
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