NEW YORK:Astronomers become shocked after came to know a big lighting storm activity in the upper atmosphere of Uranus. But scientists could not watch the planet from earth because it is situated in a dark area from our solar system. The unusually strong storms on Uranus were observed by a team led by Imke de Pater of the University of California,Berkeley.De Pater said that eight different strome were observed on Uranus in starting month of August and one of the strome was so high with the birghtness ever observed on Uranus and represented 30% of all light reflected by the entire planet at the 2.2-micron wavelength.
The strange activity on Uranus was, however, first noticed by astronomers on August 5 and 6 with the help of W. M. Keck II Telescope in Hawaii. The astronomers deduced after meticulously analyzing the images that a massive storm existed in the planet’s upper atmosphere.
Such a strong activity was actually expected by astronomers in 2007, when Uranus’ equinox was happening and the sun was shining directly over the equator, said Heidi Hammel, co-investigator from the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. Researchers thought that this type of activity had no chance to happen now and were left puzzled after spotting these amazing storms in the upper atmosphere of Uranus.
Deep inside Uranus’ atmosphere under the uppermost layer of methane ice sits another smaller storm. De Pater said that this storm might have an association with a vortex similar to ones observed during the 2007 equinox.
After analyzing data from Jupiter, it was found that such vortices could span a huge vertical distance through the atmosphere. With the help of Hubble Telescope later on, it was determined that storms spread over 5,760 miles and clouds occupied a range of altitudes.
