by Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP) – A day at Uranus was just a little longer.
Scientists reported on Monday that observations of the Hubble world space telescope have confirmed that Uranus lasted 17 hours, 14 minutes and 52 seconds to complete a complete rotation. That is 28 seconds longer than the estimates of the Voyager 2 -room vehicle of NASA in the 1980s.
A French-run team studied Aurora observations of a decade on the ice giant to pursue its magnetic poles. This long -term persecution provided Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, a more precise rotation period. From this distance it takes about 84 years for Uranus to circle the sun.
“The continuous observations of Hubble were crucial,” said main author Laurent Lamy from Paris Observatory in an explanation.
Lamy and his international team said that this new approach can help to determine the rotation of every world with Auroras and a magnetosphere.
The knowledge published in the Journal Nature Astronomy comes a few weeks before the 35th anniversary of the Hubble start. The NASA Space Shuttle Discovery delivered the space telescope to Orbit on April 24, 1990.
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