University of Oxford researchers have discovered that Uranus smells bad.
(We’ll pause a second to let you have a laugh. Go ahead. You know you want to.)
According to an article in USA Today, scientists examining the planet’s infrared light through the Gemini North telescope found clouds of hydrogen sulfide spreading into the distant planet’s upper atmosphere.
Hydrogen sulfide is a toxic gas that smells like rotten eggs, or like someone passed gas.
As if the name of the planet wasn’t enough, scientists recently discovered Uranus is home to fart-smelling clouds.
The research team’s findings were published Monday in Nature Astronomy, an online, peer-reviewed scientific journal.
“If an unfortunate human were ever to descend through Uranus’s clouds, they would be met with very unpleasant and odiferous conditions,” lead author Patrick Irwin said in a release.
But the chances of that actually happening are slim.
Irwin said atmospheric conditions on Uranus, which include temperatures of negative 200 degrees Celsius and a mixture of hydrogen, helium, and methane, would almost certainly be fatal to humans — long before the bad odor would be a factor.
