“The discovery, reported in Nature Astronomy, should help astronomers better understand the formation not only of Uranus but of the other outer planets. For one thing, Uranus differs from gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, whose clouds are made up mostly of ammonia ice (and are thus less smelly).
“If an unfortunate human were to ever descend through Uranus’ clouds, they would be met with very unpleasant and odiferous conditions,” says study co-author Patrick Irwin of the University of Oxford in a news release.
Not that they’d live long enough to sniff it: “Suffocation and exposure in the (minus 328 degrees Fahrenheit) atmosphere made of mostly hydrogen, helium and methane would take its toll long before the smell.” It’s likely that Neptune’s clouds are similar to Uranus’ clouds in makeup, given that those two planets formed farther from the sun than Jupiter and Saturn, notes Space.com.”
I admit, my first thought on reading it was just that...having a spacesuit and having to remove the helmet to actually smell the Uranus farts and having the guy asphyxiate in agony being exposed to it a la “Total Recall”!
Then it reminded me of a First Class in the Navy who had to have all of his teeth removed and he only ate peanut butter for about a week...he cleared out the compartment with a big grin, and I thought “Yeah...removing the helmet WOULD be like being the last one out of the compartment that day when AD1 Ingraham let loose...
A planet made out of fuel, hmmmm....