cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/48332762
A new analysis of decades’ worth of observations has revealed that Uranus does indeed emit more heat than it receives from the rays of the Sun.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/48332762
A new analysis of decades’ worth of observations has revealed that Uranus does indeed emit more heat than it receives from the rays of the Sun.
it’s not chemical, that much i can tell you. there was a study done in 1800 iirc where they contemplated what gives the sun its enormous power and they figured out that if the sun was a solid ball of coal burning slowly, it wouldn’t last longer than 200 years iirc, at the enormous rate of power it emits. it’s a nuclear process
these nuclear processes can be very long-running. uranium takes billions of years to decay. it’s probable that a lot of planets have uranium in their interior and that heats up the planet from the inside.
Uranus isn’t the sun though and the power output is many orders of magnitude lower