back to article 'Scope boffins get INSIDE URANUS after snapping mystery spots

Uranus is one of the darkest places in our Solar System, so it's hard to spot from Earth. However, astronomers have caught the gas giant lighting up as unexplained storms ripped away its atmospheric cover. Massive storm on Uranus Something is rumbling deep within Uranus Using the W. M. Keck II Telescope on Hawaii, …

  1. Blofeld's Cat
    Pint

    Ye gods...

    You just couldn't resist it, could you, Iain.

    This has to be one of the most double single entendre filled articles ever.

    Well done. Have a pint

    1. breakfast Silver badge

      Re: Ye gods...

      It really should have got tired, but inexplicably it got funnier instead, in vintage repeated-innuendo style.

  2. frank ly

    It all depends ...

    ... on how you pronounce it, internally as you read. (I was chuckling all the way.)

  3. Big_Ted

    Oh my god........

    ITS HATCHING . . . . .

  4. Gannettt

    Shined???

  5. Trainee grumpy old ****
    Trollface

    You missed one!

    Am I the only one who, on reading the title, expected the word "Goatse" to appear in the article?

    1. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: Am I the only one

      No, you arsen't. Er, I mean "aren't"

  6. ravenviz Silver badge

    How about an eddy caused by an impact of some sort?

    1. TeeCee Gold badge
      Coat

      Yup, there's always going to be a severe reaction when something smashes into Uranus.

  7. Syed
    Unhappy

    What about

    The rings around Uranus? No mention of those. :-(

    1. lady grey
      Happy

      Re: What about

      They may have forgotten about that discovery several years ago and astronomers had been viewing Uranus a long time without seeing that fascinating detail. Most pleased to upvote your mention!

  8. JustWondering

    Excuse me ...

    Just exactly what is this light that shines out of Uranus?

  9. Denarius
    Thumb Up

    worth planning orbiters?

    time for orbiter and maybe atmospheric probes if something worth seeing can happen. Neptune also looks very different to other gas giants. A close look at Tirton might be instructive too. Nitrogen geysers spraying into space so material sampling is possible. Hang on, another couple of self created wars to blow debt on first.

    1. cray74

      Re: worth planning orbiters?

      "time for orbiter and maybe atmospheric probes if something worth seeing can happen."

      One of the potential end-uses for Cassini was to send it to Uranus or Neptune but the transit would be slow (20-ish years), which pushes Cassini's warranty a bit far. So, Cassini's got a typical kamikaze dive into Saturn waiting for it.

      If another Cassini-class mission were launched for Uranus, would there be a good target for a lander like Huygens? The moons lack atmospheres for convenient aerobraking. Perhaps a Galilean-style atmospheric probe for Uranus?

  10. Morphius

    Uh-oh

    No one would have believed in the early years of the 21st century that this world and its endeavours to land on an already claimed comet were being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe and out to comets, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Uranus, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded the invasion of their comet with spiteful eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

    Apologies to H. G. Wells

    1. Ru'

      Re: Uh-oh

      Sorry, too busy laughing at Uranus to read all that... (sad but true!)

    2. Securitymoose
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Uh-oh - Aliens

      Not storms, but nuclear wars between rival groups of aliens, ones with green skin vs ones with blue skin. They are all doomed and there will now be no more sightings of flying saucers etc. Let that be a lesson to Planet Earth.

  11. Lamb0
    Gimp

    Old News...

    but fascinating imagery!

    "Amateurs" have been following this for awhile as can be seen with imagery utilizing a 14"-15" Newtonian or Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope here: http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/477407-ephemeris-for-uranus-storm/ , with an updated guestimate for the ephemeris for the capably curious here: http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/477407-ephemeris-for-uranus-storm/ .

    The Keck imagery shows you what Pros with a 394" reflector (or two) can get you. ;<)

    http://www.keckobservatory.org/

    1. breakfast Silver badge

      Re: Old News...

      So a couple of pros with an enormous mirror can see Uranus through Keck's?

  12. Andraž 'ruskie' Levstik

    Powering up

    So that's where the death star has been hidding all these aeons...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: Powering up

      No, that's the earth's moon they just covered it in a kilometre of rock to hide it

  13. SRS0001

    let me get this straight...they performed a colonoscopy on Uranus?

  14. Jonny99

    Sophomoric Humour

    Since even in the 21st century the name "Uranus," an ancient and venerated Roman term, continues to provoke childish jokes, I propose that we change the name once and for all to "Urectum."

    1. Glen 1

      Re: Sophomoric Humour

      In-YOUR-endo!

  15. cjminshall

    I love your articles... but "boffin" has got to go and WORDS in ALL CAPS.

    1. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: cjminshall

      NEVER!

      C.

  16. Chris G

    Proposed

    Funding for a gloves off, in depth, prolonged program to examine the gaseous and turbulent atmosphere around Uranus.

  17. Sgt_Oddball

    light shines out of Uranus

    Must have been something it ate...

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