OK, we’ve talked about
settling on the Moon,
on Mars and even Venus.
But how about somewhere that’s cold,
dark and smells like farts?
Yeah, Uranus.
I mean, Uranus.
Welcome to your new home
on the seventh planet from the Sun.
You’d now be a whopping
2.9 billion km (1.8 billion mi) away
from our Solar System’s energy source.
Following in the footsteps of NASA’s Voyager 2 probe,
the journey to Uranus
would take about nine and a half years.
But now that you’ve made it,
you’d catch a great view of this ice giant.
What you’d find is a planet four times wider than the Earth,
orbited by 27 known moons and 13 rings.
Plus, it would be rotating east to west.
And tipped on its side.
Well, it’s about time you head down to the surface.
Wait, where’s the surface?
As you descend, hold your nose.
This place stinks.
The gassy atmosphere of Uranus
is primarily made up of hydrogen,
helium and methane.
The higher altitudes would be the smelliest,
thanks to the pungent rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide.
Going further down toward the planet’s surface,
you’d start to notice there isn’t one.
Uranus is smaller and compositionally different
than the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn.
It consists of slushy water,
methane and ammonia fluids above a small rocky center.
Not that you’d be able to see very much.
Uranus only receives about 0.27%
as much sunlight as the Earth.
So you'd be living in darkness.
With the lack of sunlight and surface,
you couldn't grow your own food there.
Your ship would need to supply you with food.
But you could source your water from the planet’s water ice.
You’d find conditions on the planet very cold and windy.
Temperatures in some parts of the atmosphere
could be as low as -225 °C (-373 °F).
That’s colder than Neptune,
the outermost planet in the Solar System.
Massive clouds of ammonia and methane ice crystals
would swirl around you.
Storms almost two-thirds the size of the U.S.
would batter you with wind speeds
up to 900 km/h (560 mph).
But it’s too late to turn back now.
You’d need to learn how to settle
and survive in these conditions.
Establishing yourself on the surface would be a definite no-go.
And the strongest, most frigid winds
would tear you apart in the lower altitudes.
Your best bet would be a floating settlement up high in the clouds.
But this wouldn’t be your average blimp or airship settlement.
Blimps only lift when inflated
with a gas that’s lighter than the surrounding atmosphere.
On Earth, you’d use helium.
On Uranus, there wouldn't be any lighter gas to use.
That’s due to the atmosphere
made of molecular hydrogen and atomic helium.
However, you could try something more theoretical.
Like a near-vacuum ship.
Instead of gas, this kind of ship would create a vacuum to lift.
You’d simply remove gas or add it
to allow the ship to go higher or lower.
And it would be a clean technology.
No fuel needed.
You should get comfy because
you'd never be able to leave your ship without your spacesuit.
On Uranus, you couldn't breathe.
And you couldn't survive a second
in the unbelievably frigid temperatures.
Just stay safe and enjoy the view.
OK, now that you’ve figured out how to survive,
what would life on Uranus be like?
Well, for starters, you’d find a slightly different
sense of gravity than you’re used to.
But considering that Uranus is 15 times more massive than Earth,
you’d be surprised by the difference.
Contrary to what you might think,
you wouldn't have to worry about being crushed.
The surface gravity would be
only 90% as strong as the Earth’s.
So if you weighed 75 kg (165 lb) on Earth,
you’d now be a lighter 67 kg (148 lb).
Another thing you’d have to get used to is time.
One Uranian day would be equal to about 17 hours on Earth.
That wouldn’t be so bad.
But get ready for one incredibly long trip around the Sun.
One year on Uranus would equal 84 Earth years.
Yeah, you could die of old age before the year is over.
You could even live an entire life
in just one 42-year long summer or winter.
A nice long summer on Earth
sounds pretty good right about now.
Maybe it’s time we tilted the Earth sideways on its axis
to see what would happen.
But that sounds like a story
for another WHAT IF.