From ScienceAlert, March 27:
Poor old Uranus just can't seem to catch a break. Something already tipped the planet on its side, so its orbit is perpendicular to those of the other Solar System planets. It probably smells terrible. And now scientists have discovered that the atmosphere of Uranus is leaking out into space.....MUCH MORE
Hidden in the data from Voyager 2's historic 1986 encounter with the icy planet, and undiscovered until now, was the presence of a plasmoid - a pocket of atmospheric material being funnelled away from Uranus by the planet's magnetic field.
It's the first time a plasmoid has been spotted in connection with an ice giant, and it doesn't just show us that Uranus' atmosphere is leaking. It's also revealing some of the dynamics of this planet's peculiar, twisted magnetic field.
Actually, leaky atmospheres aren't that uncommon. It's called atmospheric escape, and it's how Mars, for example, turned from what we think was quite a damp planet into a dusty barren wasteland. Venus is leaking hydrogen. Jupiter's moon Io and Saturn's moon Titan are leaking. Even Earth is losing about 90 tonnes of atmospheric material a day (don't worry, we have around 5,140 trillion tonnes, it will take a long time to completely disappear)....
