The Tilt Of Uranus

Unlike all the other planets in the solar system, the axis of the planet Uranus is tilted at an angle of 98 degrees which makes it roll like a ball while going around the sun while the other planets can be said spin like a top while revolving around the Sun. The giant planet Uranus was tipped on its side by a succession of collisions by object bigger than the earth not just once but twice as previously thought, as the new researches suggest.

It is estimated that the collisions occurred in the early days of the solar system when Uranus still must have been surrounded by disks of dust and gas which later formed its moons. Due to the huge impact of the collision the disk must have formed around Uranus highly slanted equatorial plane. These findings were a result of scientific simulations that were done for both single collision as well as multiple collisions. However, the researchers did find that if there was a single collision in that case the Uranus moons would display retrograde motion, orbiting opposite to what is seen today. When confronted with this discrepancy the scientist tweaked their simulations and found that similar two collisions seems to be responsible for Uranus’s moons motion as well the degree of its axis. The tilt of Uranus also has an impact on its seasons. One hemisphere of Uranus points towards the Sun while the other points away. The positions of the poles slowly reverse, until half Uranian year which is a whopping 42 years of summer for the Northern Hemisphere followed by 42 years of winter.

By: Madhuchanda Saxena

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180702170903.htm