Scientists have revised Uranus’s rotation period using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, confirming it takes 17 hours, 14 minutes, and 52 seconds for the planet to complete one full spin—28 seconds longer than NASA’s Voyager 2 estimated in the 1980s.
A French-led research team analyzed a decade of aurora observations to track Uranus’s magnetic poles, enabling a more precise measurement. The study, published in Nature Astronomy, highlights how long-term auroral tracking can refine rotation data for any planet with a magnetosphere.
This discovery comes just ahead of the 35th anniversary of Hubble’s launch on April 24, 1990.
Source – CGTN
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