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
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, …
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.
"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?
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
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/