Should NASA Prioritize Probing Ice Planet Uranus? Here’s What Planetary Scientists Recommend!

The National Academy of Sciences has encouraged NASA to undertake the first expedition to massive Uranus in a study defining space goals for the next decade.

According to the Committee on Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey, the Uranus Orbiter and Probe is the highest-priority flagship mission.

They published their recent assessment, titled "Origins, Worlds, and Life: A Decadal Strategy for Planetary Science and Astrobiology (2023-2032)," in the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, DC.

(Photo : AFP/AFP via Getty Images)
UNITED STATES: A false color view of Uranus made from images taken by Voyager II, 21 January 1986 from a distance of 4,17 million kilometers.

Planetary Experts Want NASA to Giant Icy Planet Uranus

According to US planetary experts, NASA should send a flagship mission to investigate the giant icy planet Uranus.

Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who worked on the 19 April report, said in a Scientific American report, "This mission will be absolutely transformative."

Uranus is riddled with scientific puzzles, including how it evolved a complicated magnetic field and why it rotates practically on its side. More broadly, researching Uranus could reveal information about planets orbiting other stars; the most common exoplanets are around the size of Uranus, with over 5,000 known exoplanets.

Some planetary scientists have recently called for a big mission to Uranus or Neptune, also visited last by Voyager 2 in 1989. Both planets are 'ice giants,' with a small rocky core surrounded by icy material. Neptune, on the other hand, was not included in the report. Simon explained that Uranus was given a higher ranking since it is currently technologically feasible.

ALSO READ: Planet Neptune: Will the 'Ice Giant' Be NASA's Next Mission?

A commercial Falcon Heavy rocket, which is already in operation, may be used to launch a Uranus mission. If fully funded, the launch might happen as early as 2031, the first date by which a spacecraft could be conceived and manufactured. A journey to Neptune, further away from Earth than Uranus, would almost certainly necessitate a more giant rocket, such as NASA's Space Launch System, which has yet to fly.

Uranus' Significance

Ars Technica said the Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) is the big dollar item. It will surely be given a better moniker before launch. UOP, like previous Galileo and Cassini missions, will consist of an orbiter that will remain in place to study the system and an atmospheric probe that will make a one-way excursion into the planet's (or, in Cassini's case, the moon Titan's) atmosphere. UOP should be built during the next decade to use a Jupiter gravity assist that will be available if it is launched within a timeframe that closes in 2032.

What is Uranus' significance? The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn had already been extensively studied. Still, the two ice giants of the outer Solar System, Neptune, and Uranus, were only visited by Voyager two decades ago. Exoplanet surveys have shown that planets the size of Neptune are relatively abundant elsewhere in our galaxy. Thus, the study will be helpful in general.

Uranus is particularly fascinating because it appears to have been forcefully struck early in its history, causing its spin axis to change about 90 degrees. It also includes moons that appear geologically active and could have oceans. Apart from that, it is substantially closer to Earth than Neptune.

The study suggests launching a second flagship mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus should budget increases outstrip inflation. Enceladus looks to feature a sub-ice ocean and geysers that let some of its contents escape into space.

The "Enceladus Orbilander" will fly through the plumes of these geysers to investigate their contents before landing on the moon's surface for a two-year mission. The goal would be to launch it in time to reach the moon by the 2050s when orbital fluctuations allow more sunlight to Enceladus' southern hemisphere, which is home to the geysers.