I read this on Facebook and stayed for the comments. I wasn’t disappointed.
“New research confirms that Uranus emits about 12.5% more heat than it receives from the Sun—a finding that overturns Voyager 2’s puzzling 1986 data, which suggested Uranus had no excess heat at all.
Two independent teams, including planetary scientists from the University of Michigan and the University of Oxford, found that Uranus is still slowly radiating heat leftover from its violent formation 4.5 billion years ago. This puts it in line with other giant planets, though Uranus remains an oddball: Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune emit far more internal heat than Uranus does, even though Neptune lies farther from the Sun.
Why Uranus’s internal temperature is so much lower than its neighbors remains a mystery. It may be due to differences in its interior structure or a unique evolutionary history, but scientists agree more direct exploration is needed.
The findings strengthen calls for a flagship mission to Uranus, which could reveal the hidden dynamics of this enigmatic world—its atmosphere, interior, and even its peculiar tilted magnetic field. As one researcher put it, studying Uranus isn’t just about one planet, but about unlocking the secrets of how giant planets evolve across the cosmos.
RESEARCH PAPER
Xinyue Wang et al., “Internal Heat Flux and Energy Imbalance of Uranus”, Geophysical Research Letters (2025)”
“New research confirms that Uranus emits about 12.5% more heat than it receives from the Sun—a finding that overturns Voyager 2’s puzzling 1986 data, which suggested Uranus had no excess heat at all.
Two independent teams, including planetary scientists from the University of Michigan and the University of Oxford, found that Uranus is still slowly radiating heat leftover from its violent formation 4.5 billion years ago. This puts it in line with other giant planets, though Uranus remains an oddball: Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune emit far more internal heat than Uranus does, even though Neptune lies farther from the Sun.
Why Uranus’s internal temperature is so much lower than its neighbors remains a mystery. It may be due to differences in its interior structure or a unique evolutionary history, but scientists agree more direct exploration is needed.
The findings strengthen calls for a flagship mission to Uranus, which could reveal the hidden dynamics of this enigmatic world—its atmosphere, interior, and even its peculiar tilted magnetic field. As one researcher put it, studying Uranus isn’t just about one planet, but about unlocking the secrets of how giant planets evolve across the cosmos.
RESEARCH PAPER
Xinyue Wang et al., “Internal Heat Flux and Energy Imbalance of Uranus”, Geophysical Research Letters (2025)”
