The glacial planet, four times larger than Earth, is the archetype of the new exoplanets scientists have discovered in recent years.
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Posted on 04/19/2022 22:01
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To Uranus and beyond. An influential panel of scientists from the American Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is urging NASA to focus its efforts on the seventh planet in the solar system, explored only once by the Traveling probe in 1986. Scientists assure in this document that a detailed study of Uranus would make it possible to learn a lot about the recently discovered exoplanets, four times larger than Earth and, like Uranus, covered in ice.
In the previous document, published by the same academy in 2011, the American space agency followed several recommendations. Priority was given to exploring Mars and collecting rocks from the Red Planet, as well as sending a probe to Jupiter and its moon Europa, planned for 2024.
“We think we understand a planet the size of Jupiter or Earth. But between the two is a category of planets that we don’t understand, how they grow to eventually reach the size of Jupiter. A mission to Uranus could help us there,” Leigh Fletcher, a researcher at the University of Leicester, told the BBC. There is a possibility of reaching the glacial planet in “only” 13 years, between 2031 and 2032.