Shock: blue planet in Solar System is 'transforming'

The discovery, dubbed "astounding," by NASA, comes from data from Voyager 2, one of NASA's farthest spacecraft, sent to Earth. When passing by Uranus, it was "shot" by the planet with pieces of atmosphere.

Data analysis reveals the main culprit in the planet's strange twisted magnetic field. The planet's magnetic field is responsible for protecting the atmosphere from the solar wind, but in Uranus, it simultaneously steals the atmosphere, moving out into space in magnetic plasma bubbles.

Uranus appears in a beautiful blue hue from photographs taken by NASA spacecraft - (photo: NASA).

It is estimated that throughout the lifetime of Uranus, it has been "stolen" between 15% and 55% of the atmosphere in this way.

The event was seen by other NASA spacecraft on Saturn and Jupiter, though not as heavy as Uranus.

According to space physicist Gina DiBraccio from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the magnetic plasma balls, called "plasmoid," are mostly ionized hydrogen.

Remarkably, there was another planet in the solar system that evolved this way in a clear and devastating way: Mars. According to available evidence, Mars was once like Earth, with water, life and a thick atmosphere. But it is the loss of the atmosphere that makes it a dead planet because of an atmosphere so thin and inadequate to retain liquid water on the surface, and not to prevent harmful radiation. for life.

Uranus, based on new discoveries, is probably evolving in the same way and does not rule out the possibility that it will be a second Mars in the next few billion years.

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