Uranus smells like rotten eggs.
It may sound like a bad joke, but scientists have discovered that the giant ice planet contains clouds of hydrogen sulfide, a gas that smells like rotten eggs, WTOP reported.
This is the first time that scientist have been able to find clear evidence of the planet's chemical composition.
They arrived at the conclusion after using a Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer (NIFS) to determine the makeup of the gas by using the device to filter the sunlight reflected above the planet's clouds.
"If an unfortunate human were ever to descend through Uranus' clouds, they would be met with very unpleasant and odiferous conditions," Patrick Irwin, first author of the study and a physics professor at the University of Oxford, told The Register.
However, the stench would be the least of a person's worries if they were to find themselves on Uranus.
"Suffocation and exposure in the negative 200 degrees Celsius atmosphere made of mostly hydrogen, helium, and methane would take its toll long before the smell," Irwin said.
The findings, which were published Monday in Nature, could be key in helping scientists obtain a greater understanding of the structure of the Solar System.Scientists have speculated that Uranus was made up of other molecules of ammonia or hydrogen sulfide ice, and the discovery draws a distinction between ice planets and gas planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, which are believed to have ammonia and ammonia ice in upper clouds.
What this all means is that scientists are now able to better understand the different conditions that led to the formation of both planet types.
"During our Solar System's formation the balance between nitrogen and sulphur (and hence ammonia and Uranus's newly detected hydrogen sulfide) was determined by the temperature and location of planet's formation," Irwin told The Register.
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