Extract from ABC News
In short:
NASA scientists have taken a fresh look at data from the Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus in 1986.
A cosmic coincidence has led the scientists to suggest the planet could support life.
What's next?
The scientists believe a future mission to Uranus is crucial to understanding the planet further.
A search for potential life
The Voyager 2 observations had suggested that its two largest moons — Titania and Oberon — often orbit outside the magnetosphere.
However, the new study indicates they tend to stay inside the protective bubble, making it easier for scientists to magnetically detect potential subsurface oceans.
"Both are thought to be prime candidates for hosting liquid water oceans in the Uranian system due to their large size relative to the other major moons," Jet Propulsion Laboratory planetary scientist and study co-author Corey Cochrane said.
The scientists believe that large subsurface oceans are a key signifier for potential to support life.
"I mean, the search for habitability for life is one of the key investigations for NASA and science generally. To the slogan usually is follow the water," Dr Jasinski said.
"If these moons we previously thought weren't a place you could find subsurface oceans. If they're more similar to the moons at Jupiter, like Europa, you could have large bodies of subsurface oceans on Uranian moons."
On October 14, NASA launched a spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa to see if it can support life.
NASA scientists are eager to learn whether subsurface oceans on moons around Uranus have conditions suitable to support life.
"A future mission to Uranus is crucial to understanding not only the planet and magnetosphere, but also its atmosphere, rings and moons," Dr Jasinski said.
Uranus is blue-green in colour due to the methane contained in the atmosphere and it has a diameter of about 50,700km.
That means Uranus is big enough to fit 63 Earths inside it and it has 28 known moons and two sets of rings.
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