Uranus is strange and researchers think the giant collision caused it

Photo: TIME LIFE PICTURES / GAMES / GETTY IMAGES

Uranus has always been a bit oddball in our solar system and a new simulation by a research team can explain why.

Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, is an original ice giant tilting at an angle of 98 degrees – while every other planet rotates vertically in relation to its orbit, Uranus rotates on a horizontal axis. The researchers suggest that this may be due to a huge collision.

Jacham Kegerreis, Doctor of Durham University, presented an analysis that a huge stone, possibly the size of a small planet, collided with Uranus, making it more dramatic, affecting its spin, its magnetic field, and even its heat distribution.

Kegerreis and his colleague scientists have created a high resolution simulation to show what this would have been 3-4 billion years ago. The effect would have been catastrophic.

While affecting the tilt of the planet, the impact event may also have accelerated the development of Uranus's thick icy outer layer, which keeps the heat from the core of the planet locked. Uranus is the only planet in our solar system that does not leak heat at its core and reaches -371 ° Fahrenheit at some of its chilliest points.

The effect was probably caused by Uranus's bigger moons and rings that circulate it at a rotational speed to get a unique path.

There is still much to learn from Uranus, considering that only one probe has studied the planet closely, and that was Voyager 2 in 1986.