The Moons of Uranus May Hold the Key to Finding Missing Planets

Article excerpt

Computer simulations suggest Uranus's moons might preserve evidence of giant planets that vanished from the early solar system. Researchers ran models showing how the ice giants formed and migrated billions of years ago, finding that close encounters between massive worlds leave detectable signatures in the orbital patterns of smaller bodies. If confirmed, these traces could help astronomers solve a long-standing puzzle: how many giant planets initially formed, and where did some of them go? The findings open a new avenue for understanding the chaotic rearrangement that shaped our planetary neighborhood.