Something Big Crashed into Uranus and Changed It Forever (2024)

It turns out that Uranus is so weird because of a massive collision billions of years ago.

A new study confirms that this collision with a huge object — which was approximately twice the size of Earth — could have led to the planet's extreme tilt and other odd attributes.

Uranus, the planet with the unforgettable name, is unique in a number of ways. "All of the planets in the solar system are spinning more or less in the same way … yet Uranus is completely on its side," Jacob Kegerreis, the new study's lead author and a researcher at Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology in the U.K., told Space.com. And this isn't the only thing that makes the planet so strange.

Uranus also has a "very, very strange" magnetic field and is extremely cold, even though it "should" be warmer, according to Kegerreis. In this study, Kegerreis and his team of astronomers seek to explain many of the planet's odd features by attributing them to a collision with a massive, icy object about 4 billion years ago. [Photos of Uranus, the Tilted Giant]

To better understand how the impact affected Uranus' evolution, the team used a high-powered supercomputer to run a simulation of massive collisions — something that has never been done before. This study confirms an older study that suggested Uranus' significant tilt was caused by a collision with a massive object.

Something Big Crashed into Uranus and Changed It Forever (1)

The researchers suspect that this object was probably a young protoplanet, made up of rock and ice. This collision is "pretty much the only way" that we can explain Uranus' tilt, Kegerreis said.

Amazingly, Uranus retained its atmosphere after this impact. The researchers think that this is because the object only grazed the planet, hitting it hard enough to change its tilt but not enough to affect its atmosphere, according to a statement from Durham University.

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It's likely that this type of event isn't uncommon in the universe: "All the evidence points to giant impacts being frequent during planet formation, and with this kind of research, we are now gaining more insight into their effect on potentially habitable exoplanets," Luis Teodoro, study co-author and researcher at the BAER/NASA Ames Research Center, said in the statement.

Something Big Crashed into Uranus and Changed It Forever (2)

But this enormous object crashing into Uranus did more than just knock it into a new tilt. According to this research, when the object hit Uranus, some of the debris from the impact may have formed a thin shell that continues to trap heat coming from the planet's core. This could at least partially explain why Uranus' outer atmosphere is extremely cold.

According to Kegerreis, this collision could also explain two other oddities about the tilted planet. First, it could explain how and why some of Uranus' moons formed. The researchers think that the impact could have knocked rock and ice into the young planet's orbit — debris that later became some of Uranus' 27 moons. Additionally, they think that the collision could have altered the rotation of any moons that already existed at the time. Last year, a separate study also explored this aspect of the collision.

The researchers also suggest that the collision could have created molten ice and lumps of rock inside the planet, which tilted its magnetic field, according to the statement.

Following this study, the researchers hope to study this collision with even higher-resolution simulations to better understand Uranus' evolution, according to Kegerreis. He also noted that the team aims to study Uranus' chemistry and the different ways that an impact like this could have affected its atmosphere.

This work was published in The Astrophysical Journal on July 2, 2018.

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her @chelsea_gohd. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Something Big Crashed into Uranus and Changed It Forever (3)

Senior Writer

Chelsea “Foxanne” Gohd joinedSpace.com in 2018 and is now a Senior Writer, writing about everything from climate change to planetary science and human spaceflight in both articles and on-camera in videos. With a degree in Public Health and biological sciences, Chelsea has written and worked for institutions including the American Museum of Natural History, Scientific American, Discover Magazine Blog, Astronomy Magazine and Live Science. When not writing, editing or filming something space-y, Chelsea "Foxanne" Gohd is writing music and performing as Foxanne, even launching a song to space in 2021 with Inspiration4.You can follow her on Twitter@chelsea_gohd and @foxannemusic.

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Something Big Crashed into Uranus and Changed It Forever (2024)

FAQs

Something Big Crashed into Uranus and Changed It Forever? ›

The researchers suspect that this object was probably a young protoplanet, made up of rock and ice.

What was the object that hit Uranus? ›

Is there a name for the object that could have collided with Uranus? - Quora. Theia. A huge encounter involved Mars-size body called Theia, of which was primarily rocky (rather than icy).

What will happen if Uranus crashed into Earth? ›

Assuming Uranus crashes into Earth, the effect will demolish. The ice monster is two times the size of Earth, and its methane gas will cause worldwide environmental change.

Why do scientists think that something big crashed into Uranus? ›

Uranus is four times the size of Earth, meaning it was hit by a rock that was roughly half its size. They also think the impact created a bunch of debris which has acted as a thermal shield for Uranus, trapping heat from the planet's exterior and giving it its unusually cold outer atmosphere.

What was the collision with a giant asteroid may have caused Uranus to? ›

Uranus is the only planet whose equator is nearly at a right angle to its orbit, with a tilt of 97.77 degrees. This may be the result of a collision with an Earth-sized object long ago. This unique tilt causes Uranus to have the most extreme seasons in the solar system.

What crashed into Uranus billions of years ago? ›

This study confirms an older study that suggested Uranus' significant tilt was caused by a collision with a massive object. The researchers suspect that this object was probably a young protoplanet, made up of rock and ice.

How big was the object that hit Uranus? ›

Our findings confirm that the most likely outcome was that the young Uranus was involved in a cataclysmic collision with an object twice the mass of Earth, if not larger, knocking it on to its side and setting in process the events that helped create the planet we see today,” said Kegerreis.

Will Uranus lose its rings? ›

now come on point that, there is no evidence or scientific indication that Earth or Uranus have lost their rings. Earth does not have a ring system, and Uranus does have a set of rings. However, planetary ring systems can be dynamic and subject to changes over time.

What planet collided with Earth? ›

Theia (/ˈθiːə/) is a hypothesized ancient planet in the early Solar System which, according to the giant-impact hypothesis, collided with the early Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, with some of the resulting ejected debris coalescing to form the Moon.

Will Neptune and Pluto ever collide? ›

Yet in reality the two planets can never get close to colliding, for two reasons. Firstly, the apparent crossing-points are optical illusions, caused by the fact that the two orbits are actually steeply inclined to one another.

Which planet is the hottest? ›

It has a strong greenhouse effect, similar to the one we experience on Earth. Because of this, Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system. The surface of Venus is approximately 465°C!

Which planet lost its status recently? ›

Why is Pluto no longer a planet? The main event of the 2006 General Assembly of the IAU, the proposal that would come to demote Pluto, was a defining moment for the rest of the solar system as well.

Was Uranus found by accident? ›

British astronomer Sir William Herschel “discovered” Uranus in 1781. However, earlier observers had seen it many times but thought it was a star. Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus accidentally while conducting a star survey.

What hit Uranus to make it sideways? ›

According to the new paper, it wasn't an impact that tipped Uranus at all. Rather, it argues, a massive moon fell into orbit around the planet and gravitationally destabilized it. Using computer models, the researchers calculate that over time, the moon would have tilted Uranus to an angle of 80 degrees.

Will Jupiter and Uranus collide? ›

This is a rare astrological occurrence, as these planets conjunct approximately once every 14 years! The conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus is said to be one of the most intense days of the 2024 astrological calendar.

Will Uranus and Pluto collide? ›

If the planets remain in their current orbits, no. It's true that Pluto's elongated orbit carries it closer to the Sun than Neptune, and then farther away from the Sun than Neptune. However, crossing orbits does not imply these planets will collide.

What knocked Uranus on its side? ›

According to the new paper, it wasn't an impact that tipped Uranus at all. Rather, it argues, a massive moon fell into orbit around the planet and gravitationally destabilized it. Using computer models, the researchers calculate that over time, the moon would have tilted Uranus to an angle of 80 degrees.

Has a human made object visited Uranus? ›

Jan. 24, 1986: NASA's Voyager 2 made the first – and so far the only – visit to Uranus. The spacecraft came within 50,600 miles (81,500 kilometers) of the planet's cloud tops.

What is leaking from Uranus? ›

It had a big lunch. Scientists discovered evidence of a Uranian plasmoid in 34-year-old Voyager 2 data. Plasmoids are bubbles of atmospheric material that are stripped away by their respective parent body's magnetic field.

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