Not surprisingly, the planet that has given us the most information since space exploration began was Mars, for its proximity and the possibility of “frequent” visits. However, over the next decade, priorities may change: a report compiled by US scientists showed that Uranus will be the main “target” for the secrets he can “keep”.

The researchers asked NASA developing a mission that would send a spacecraft into orbit around an icy planet, along with a probe that would dive into its atmosphere – the concept is called Uranus orbiter and probe (Uranus orbiter and probe) and may be released from 2030.

To date, only Voyager 2, the US space agency’s deep-space probe passed Uranus, stopping about 81,500 kilometers from the planet’s clouds. Some of the secrets revealed by the mission were new moons and rings.

Despite this, this is still not enough for many scientists, who were intrigued by the formation of the penultimate star of the solar system, gaseous, but containing ice in its atmosphere. Orbiters and probes will provide more detail and improve exploration.

“Our understanding of the internal structure of the planet is so poor that we really have very little insight,” Jonathan Fortney, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, told The Verge. We really don’t know.”

Uranus and Neptune these are the only planets in the solar system that we have never orbited – a detail: scientists believe that ice giants like them dominate the universe. Their study can reveal many hidden secrets of the cosmos.

“Ice giant-like planets are among the most common,” Bethany Elmann, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, told The Verge. “

Other space exploration priorities include further exploration of Mars, sending a spacecraft to the Moon. Europein Jupiter – one of the objects with the greatest potential for life in the underwater “ocean” – and for studying Enceladusnatural satellite Saturn with characteristics close to Europe.

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Source: Edge