Strange Anomaly in 1986 May Have Warped Our Perception of Uranus

The penultimate planet, our best measurements suggest, has a whole slew of idiosyncrasies. And one of the most puzzling is its magnetic field. According to measurements taken by Voyager 2 when the NASA probe conducted a flyby in 1986, Uranus's magnetosphere is a hot mess – off-center and off-kilter, unlike anything else in the Solar System.

This has informed how we think about Uranus ever since, making the planet's history a mystery scientists have been working to solve.

There's just one problem, says space plasma physicist Jamie Jasinski of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology: Uranus's magnetic field probably isn't hinky most of the time.

Jasinski and his team have undertaken a new analysis, and discovered that the Voyager 2 flyby probably took place during a brief window when solar activity was messing with Uranus, taking observations inconsistent with the norm.

"The scientific picture of Uranus that we have had since the Voyager 2 flyby is that it has an extreme magnetospheric environment. But I always thought that maybe the Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus just happened to occur during some strange activity rather than it being like that generally," Jasinski told ScienceAlert.

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