The Committee to Nuke Elysium

Uranus is an oddball in the solar system. Its rotational axis is tilted by almost 90 degrees, like a spinning top lying on its side. One lap around the sun takes about 85 years. Uranus’ spring equinox in 2007 marked the beginning of a 43-year long period of darkness for the south pole and its surroundings, hidden from Earth’s view. It seemed that the southern half of Uranus southern hemisphere was destined to stay a bland spot in the solar system — a region of unknown winds for decades to come.

Karkoschka did not want to wait that long. He experimented with different processing techniques and developed pattern recognition software until previously unseen features popped out. The largest improvement came when he stacked 1,600 images on top of one another to account for various possibilities of the rotation of Uranus. In the end, dozens of features became visible where only a single one was known before. The features were scattered all over the southern half of Uranus’ southern hemisphere so that its detailed circulation pattern finally became known. All these features, except the one previously known, are of very low contrast and become visible when the contrast is enhanced 300 times.

Karkoschka’s work illustrates the scientific value that can be gleaned from data that have been around for a long time, available to anyone with Internet access. He had similar success when he investigated 13-year-old Voyager images of Uranus’ surroundings and discovered the satellite Perdita.