Okay you ready? Want me to just start with the... start at the top? okay.
The time to probe Uranus is now!
Uh, excuse me, excuse me... yeah yeah no it's
it's pronounced Uranus [YUR-uh-nuss] or Uranus [ER-uh-nuss] not Uranus [yer-AYE-ness].
what? what are you talking about?
Everybody says Uranus [yer-AYE-ness]!
Just because everybody does it doesn't mean it's right.
yeah but come on it kind of like eliminates this whole
double entendre thing you know that i was
that i was going with right?
yeah i i don't care this is a
serious channel we do serious space education
Ooookay. what do you want me to say?
why don't you just tell them
that we're sending a probe to
TO URANUS!!! [yer-AYE-ness]
come on it's funny!
no no absolutely not
you're you're disgusting you're like working with a 12 year old you know
that? you know you know what? I'm done you are
unprofessional you're disrespectful and i can't handle it. I'm out of here.
it's a joke it's a joke it it
it's a joke
why don't we just... why don't we just roll the intro
hey guys Tory here from Overlook Horizon
if you're new to the channel we fly high altitude weather balloon flights to the
edge of space and back and along the way we talk about space
science and technology so if that's something you're interested in
consider subscribing. today we're talking about planetary alignment specifically
with our outer planets of neptune and uranus because in
2031 we will have a unique opportunity to take a deep dive and really study
planets like uranus
you see we've only ever sent a
spacecraft to these planets once and that was voyager 2
which did a quick flyby way back in 1986 and 1989 for both uranus and neptune now
trying to get a spacecraft all the way out to uranus or neptune takes a lot of
fuel but fortunately there is a planetary
alignment coming up in 2031 that would allow a spacecraft to use
jupiter's gravity as a gravity assist now what that means
is that they could send a spacecraft towards jupiter
and use jupiter's gravity to pull the spacecraft in and as that spacecraft
comes in faster and faster it will steal some of
that energy from jupiter's gravitational pull
and use it to fly on to neptune or uranus now as i mentioned voyager 2 did
a quick flyby of those planets way back in the 80s but one thing that's been on
scientists wish lists for many years is actually placing a spacecraft into
orbit now with a combination of modern
technology and perfect planetary alignment
we could get a spacecraft in orbit around one of these far-off planets
to study things like their atmosphere or their rings or their moons and maybe
some oceans that might be on them and this would be a really cool
opportunity to try to figure out some things about these distant planets like
why neptune is warmer than uranus even though it's farther away
or why uranus has a weird magnetic field that's actually tilted relative to the
planet's rotational axis but if this is something we're going to take advantage
of nasa needs to make it a priority now
that's because a spacecraft of this nature would take millions and millions
and years and years of development work just to be ready for 2031. now nasa
could do that a number of ways by building it in-house
maybe using some commercial partners or partnering with another organization
like the european space agency but either way
they would have to make a decision and direct funding towards the project
and that's where the hard part is because getting funding for a project
like this is difficult because it's going to be competing with other nasa
projects that are maybe a little more high
profile like maybe a mars sample return or going to study the atmosphere of
venus those things are a little closer to home and so it's easier to maybe
see the benefits for the public and plus you have
immature people that'll just make jokes about sending a mission to uranus
time is ticking and this is something that they really should get on
these things don't come around very often and even if they do launch in 2031
it would still take about 12 years before a spacecraft actually got to its
destination and could start performing scientific
missions if we miss this opportunity the next chance to get out there with
current technology is not until the mid-2040s
alternatively nasa could use a more powerful rocket like the sls platform
but well we don't know what's happening with
that so what do you guys think about this should nasa make this a priority or
should they focus their time energy and money
on other projects like mars missions let me know what you guys think in the
comments down below alright thanks everybody for
watching we'll see you on the next video