Uranus really is hotter than it has any right to be.

A new analysis of decades' worth of observations has revealed that Uranus does indeed emit more heat than it receives from the rays of the Sun.

This conclusion, arrived at by two independent teams of scientists, finally resolves a puzzle that first emerged when Voyager 2 cruised past the stinky planet all the way back in 1986. Those observations suggested that Uranus was not emitting any excess heat – a finding that put it at odds with all the other giant planets in the Solar System.

A team led by planetary scientist Xinyue Wang, formerly of the University of Houston, now at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has now found that Uranus is emitting around 12.5 percent more heat than it receives from the Sun.

This is consistent with findings about Uranus made by a team led by planetary physicist Patrick Irwin of the University of Oxford in the UK, made available earlier this year on arXiv.

Source: www.sciencealert.com

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