A pale blue-green enigma, the planet Uranus has long fascinated astronomers precisely because of its extreme distance, some 1.6 billion miles (2.6 billion km) from Earth. While it is comparatively easy to gaze upon neighboring celestial bodies like the Moon and the planets Mars and Venus, Uranus is difficult to see without the most powerful telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope. As technology has advanced, it has unlocked more secrets of the strange, tilted planet (it orbits on its side compared to other planets in the solar system), from the fact that it may rain diamonds to discovering previously-unknown moons.
Now a trio of recent studies has revealed that one of its moons, Miranda, likely has a stirring ocean beneath its surface, meaning it could harbor extraterrestrial life, and that the planet’s own internal dynamics are more bizarre than we ever imagined.
