A day at Uranus just got 28 seconds longer

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This image provided by ESA/Hubble shows Uranus’ aurorae taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope on Oct. 10, 2022. (ESA/Hubble via AP)

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This image provided by ESA/Hubble showcases 3 frames from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope of the dynamic aurora on Uranus in Oct. 2022. (ESA/Hubble via AP)

By MARCIA DUNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A day at Uranus just got a little longer.

Scientists reported Monday that observations by the Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed it takes Uranus 17 hours, 14 minutes and 52 seconds to complete a full rotation. That’s 28 seconds longer than estimates by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in the 1980s.

A French-led team studied a decade’s worth of aurora observations at the ice giant to track its magnetic poles. That long-term tracking provided a more precise rotation period for Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. From that distance, it takes about 84 Earth years for Uranus to orbit the sun.

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“The continuous observations from Hubble were crucial,” lead author Laurent Lamy of the Paris Observatory said in a statement.

Lamy and his international team said this new approach can help pinpoint the rotation of any world with auroras and a magnetosphere.

Published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the findings come a few weeks before the 35th anniversary of Hubble’s launch. NASA’s space shuttle Discovery delivered the space telescope to orbit on April 24, 1990.

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