NASA to send probe inside Uranus to learn more about mysterious planet

WASHINGTON (TND) — It's got a funny name, and thanks to its atmospheric composition, it also smells like farts, but despite that, NASA is serious about sending a probe and orbiter to explore Uranus, the mysterious planet that resides 1.8 billion miles from Earth. In fact, the mission has been dubbed NASA's next "flagship mission."

NASA has several questions it wants answered by the Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission:

ORIGINS:

When and where did Uranus form in the protosolar nebula?
Did Uranus and Neptune migrate or swap positions?
Did a catastrophic giant impact tilt Uranus and rearrange its interior?

PROCESSES:

What mechanisms are transporting heat/energy in the planet and satellites today?
How do all the components in the Uranian system interact with each other?
What external factors are altering the planet, satellites, and ring compositions?
What interior structure produces Uranus’s complex magnetosphere?

HABITABILITY:

Did any of Uranus’s moons have oceans in the past?
Are any of the moons presently ocean worlds?

INTERCONNECTIONS:

How do ice giant-mass planets form and evolve in exoplanetary systems?
How does solar wind couple?

Answers to those questions are years, if not decades away. NASA hopes to target the launch of the Uranus Orbiter and Probe in 2031 or 2032, which would get the probe to the planet by 2044 during a 13-year journey.

The ice giant Uranus is one of the most enigmatic and least explored bodies in the solar system. Many of its characteristics, including its axial tilt, energy balance, atmospheric dynamics and complex magnetic field, present major puzzles. Its five large icy satellites represent potential ocean worlds, with some displaying surprising degrees of geological activity. And Uranus is arguably the closest analog we have to the most common exoplanets," NASA said in its planetary mission concept study for the 2023–2032 decadal survey.

The scientific phase of the study would lake about 4.5 years, and the orbiters would explore each of Uranus' four moons, which some scientists believe currently are or were in the past ocean worlds.

A separate probe would venture into Uranus' atmosphere to learn more about the ice giant and how its unique atmosphere works. The mission would explore the entire Uranus system, including its "moons, atmosphere, interior, magnetosphere, rings, and satellites."

It would be the second probe ever to visit the Uranus system, the first being a flyby by the Voyager 2 probe in 1986.

As a Flagship mission, UOP has the imprimatur of a broad community," NASA said in its report. "The mission would answer fundamental questions about the origin and evolution of our own solar system, and the characteristics of planets elsewhere. The mission concept requires no new technologies or launch vehicle, and has a highly flexible tour design and ample mass and power margins. The 60th anniversary of the Voyager 2 flyby could be celebrated by the arrival of the next visitor to Uranus."

A similar mission was planned for Neptune, the solar system's other ice giant, but cost and feasibility issues showed Uranus to be a better bet.

The Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission is expected to cost roughly $2.8 billion, according to estimates by NASA. That money would come out of the fiscal year 2025 budget.

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Tobi Tarwater

Update: 2024-08-16

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