Uranus is a very weird planet. Here's why astronomers want to send a probe to it

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Uranus, more than any other of our planets, has struggled with its image over time.

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Its name is the stuff of jokes, and NASA's revelation last week that it wants to send a probe to Uranus was a comedian's dream come true.

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Planetary scientists, on the other hand, are ecstatic that our seventh planet will finally receive its day in the limelight.

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One of the reasons it has been so lonely and misunderstood is because it is so far away from the Sun — 2.9 billion kilometres.

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Unlike its more famous siblings Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus has only had one visitor

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a brief flyby by the Voyager 2 probe in 1986, according to Amy Simon, a NASA scientist who has been lobbying for the planet's discovery.

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It's one of the strangest planets in the Solar System and yet we haven't been back there

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So the time is right for us now to really go explore the whole system.

Image Credit:BBC [{ "selector": ".lqklf-a", "duration": "1000ms", "fill": "forwards", "delay": "0ms", "keyframes": [ {"offset": 0, "transform": "translateY(calc(600px - 449px))", "opacity": 1}, {"offset": 1, "transform": "translateY(0)", "opacity": 1} ] }, { "selector": ".eeuuj-a", "duration": "500ms", "fill": "forwards", "delay": "0ms", "keyframes": [ {"offset": 0, "transform": "translateX(-137.4491534632606px)", "opacity": 1}, {"offset": 1, "transform": "translateX(0)", "opacity": 1} ] }]

This really is huge, unexplored territory

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As soon as we start researching one of the two, we'll find out a lot about the other

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So, let's have a look at what makes this planet so fascinating

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