Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Uranus Smells Like Farts
Gizmodo ^ | 4/29/2017 | Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Posted on 03/29/2017 12:09:00 PM PDT by Heartlander

Uranus Smells Like Farts

Scientists have lots of questions about Uranus. Why does Uranus look the way it does, why did Uranus form the way it did, why does Uranus differ so much from other gas giants, like Jupiter and Saturn? But I had a more important question.

What does Uranus smell like?

The question is actually harder to answer than it seems—it’s unlikely we’d ever be able to sniff Uranus. “It’s so cold that there’s not much” in the way of the compounds that we can smell, Jonathan Fortney, director of the Other Worlds Laboratory at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told Gizmodo. “A lot of the things you’d normally think of as volatile gasses,” the smelly ones, “have frozen out of the clouds.”

Also, if you went to Uranus to try to smell its atmosphere, you’d die. “You wouldn’t want to be in that atmosphere trying to breathe,” Mark Hofstadter, Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Gizmodo. “There’s probably not enough oxygen in these atmospheres to support us.”

We’d have to bring samples of the atmosphere back to Earth, something we’ve only managed to accomplish for a much closer celestial body, the Moon. But if we did bring a little bit of Uranus back home, we’d find a slew of molecules, both smelly and non-smelly, in its toxic air. Mostly, there would be hydrogen, helium and methane from the outermost layers of gas. But deeper inside are traces of other gases, said Hofstadter. There’s hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, methane, and carbon dioxide. There might even be a little bit of phosphine. Deeper down is a metallic sea of liquid ammonia, water and methane, said Fortney. We’ve learned this by observing the planet with spectroscopes, which detect individual wavelengths (colors) of light given off by certain molecules.

“I think the smelliest things are probably... the hydrogen sulfide and the ammonia,” said Hofstadter. The concentrations of those gases are small, less than .8 parts per million of hydrogen sulfide and less than 100 parts per billion for ammonia. However, they can also condense into clouds in the planet’s atmosphere. Stinky clouds.

Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs at .01 to 1.5 parts per million, becoming more offensive at 3 to 5 parts per million. Above 30 parts per million, it becomes “sickeningly sweet.”

Hydrogen sulfide gives farts their bad smell.

Then there’s ammonia, whose odor threshold is 5 to 50 parts per million, according to a very silly US Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration document. Ammonia smells like ammonia—you can easily pick it out of cleaning fluids and cat pee.

And human urine, if it’s too concentrated.

Other gases might offer scents, but none would improve Ur-stinky-anus’s case. Phosphine is usually odorless, but impurities can make it smell like garlic and decaying fish, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Should some of the methane, a carbon atom with four hydrogens attached, turn into ethane, which has two carbon atoms, and somehow stick itself to a sulfur atom, you’d end up with ethanethiol. Ethanethiol smells like garlic and skunks, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information’s PubChem database.

To be fair, the other gas giants probably smell similar, said Fortney. “They’d smell similar but not as strongly. There’s more hydrogen and helium and less of the volatile mixture” in the other gas giants.

So that’s it, there’s no way around it. Uranus smells like piss and farts.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Education; Science
KEYWORDS: uranus
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last
To: Heartlander

I avoid Uranus.


21 posted on 03/29/2017 12:20:45 PM PDT by Leep (Cyclops Network News (CNN). The Most Trusted Source Of Fake News.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

Very rude headline and then the picture worse.

I’m not a fan of using the word fart in public discourse. Or maybe I need a fan.


22 posted on 03/29/2017 12:22:05 PM PDT by Williams (Stop tolerating the intolerant.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

It is a gas giant after all.


23 posted on 03/29/2017 12:23:01 PM PDT by bar sin·is·ter
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

24 posted on 03/29/2017 12:23:13 PM PDT by KC_Lion ("We must put our citizens first. Only then will we Make America Great Again."- Donald Trump)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

I can see it now. “Clooney and Pitt in new space movie: “Journey to Light a Match in Spaaaaaaaaace (A Really, Really BIG Match).

Soon to be reviewed by Mystery Science Theater 2020


25 posted on 03/29/2017 12:24:10 PM PDT by CaptainPhilFan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: HarleyLady27

26 posted on 03/29/2017 12:25:27 PM PDT by JPG (TRUMP WINS!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

I told my neighbor that Sarah Palin may be able to see Russia from her house but, with a telescope, I can see Uranus from mine. He hasn’t spoken to me in weeks.


27 posted on 03/29/2017 12:25:38 PM PDT by llevrok (A group of baboons is called a "congress." Just sayin' .....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MGG
Or the "Starchair Enterpoop" :)


28 posted on 03/29/2017 12:26:04 PM PDT by SparkyBass
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

Isn’t it near the Crap Nebula?


29 posted on 03/29/2017 12:30:27 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper (WKU 2016 Boca Raton Bowl Champions)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

30 posted on 03/29/2017 12:30:31 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

Mars smells like chocolate, nougat, and peanuts.


31 posted on 03/29/2017 12:36:50 PM PDT by TonyM
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TonyM

LOL!


32 posted on 03/29/2017 12:51:12 PM PDT by rdl6989
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

The probe was denied entrance to Uranus because...well...we’re just not that way around here.


33 posted on 03/29/2017 12:58:48 PM PDT by Eagles6 (My weapons are lubricated by liberal tears.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

4/29/2017?....................you’re too early.............


34 posted on 03/29/2017 1:11:58 PM PDT by Red Badger (Ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to be afraid of........)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Lib-Lickers 2

I figured she’d smell like a tennis ball.................


35 posted on 03/29/2017 1:14:08 PM PDT by Red Badger (Ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to be afraid of........)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

What’s that? Kim Kardashian’s rear end photographed at night?


36 posted on 03/29/2017 1:38:33 PM PDT by SkyDancer (Ambition Without Talent Is Sad, Talent Without Ambition Is Worse)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

Begs the question also: where did the gas originally come from?


37 posted on 03/29/2017 1:40:08 PM PDT by SkyDancer (I Believe In The Law Until It Interferes With Justice)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Vaquero

Hehehe


38 posted on 03/29/2017 2:07:09 PM PDT by Trillian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

No comment...I could get in trouble about ‘passing gas’ and Uranus..


39 posted on 03/29/2017 2:17:11 PM PDT by ConservaTeen (Islam is Not the Religion of Peace, but The religion of Pedophilia...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Heartlander

How many out there have been named a gas giant?


40 posted on 03/29/2017 2:51:55 PM PDT by PTBAA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson