An influential panel of scientists wants to see a mission to the Solar System's seventh planet.
Discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781Its diameter is four times that of our planetSpecialists who study the outer planets in our Solar System have been campaigning for a return visit to either Uranus or Neptune ever since their late-80s Voyager-2 encounters. And the science case has only strengthened over the intervening years, proponents argue.
"We think we understand how something gets as big as Jupiter, and we think we understand how something gets to be the size of Earth and Venus. But in the middle, in that kind of sweet spot between those end-members - we don't fully understand how a world can start to grow and grow and not just carry on to become Jupiter-mass in size. A mission to Uranus could help us answer that," the Leicester University, UK, scientist told BBC News.
Uranus is an oddity compared with the other planets in the Solar System in that its axis of rotation is almost parallel with the plane of its orbit around the Sun. It's as if it has been knocked on to its side, which may well be the explanation - scientists speculate that it suffered a massive impact with another body early in its history.Indeed, the moons are quite a draw because a good many of them are likely to be "ocean worlds".
Dr Robin Canup from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, was the co-chair on the Academies' steering committee.
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