NASA’s First Rear Probe of Uranus Finds Smelly Gas

PASADENA – The joint U.S.-Soviet program exploring the outer planets of our solar system just announced that their probe, Sphincter 1, has safely entered orbit around the distant planet Uranus. Already this mechanical emissary is beaming back data that has mission scientists highly stimulated.

As Sphincter 1 began its initial pass to the rear of the planet, its sensors immediately detected what looks like a massive plume of gas emissions which “hit us right in the face.” Earliest spectral data indicate that the plume is mainly composed of methane and a few percent of hydrogen sulfide, “no doubt a real stinker,” says NASA. Concurrently, the radio-wave audio antenna picked up an intermittent, variable pitch squeal described as “a bit like a Whoopee cushion.”

Also during this first passage around the far side, high resolution radar has been mapping the topographical features of this never-before-seen planetary realm. Sphincter 1 geologists say a very quick peek at the early rear radar data shows two nearly equal-sized broad, roundish mounds of highlands running vertically in parallel with a long narrow crack in the center also oriented north to south. While the rear surface appears pocked with the usual collection of small craters and “pimple-like peaks,” the probe has already conclusively detected a single large, extremely deep cavity in the center of the crack near the southern pole.

Although the data streaming from the Uranus Sphincter’s myriad instruments have not yet been massaged to generate a detailed 3-D picture of the far side, team leader Yuri Giecch has already speculated the large, deep southern cavity to be the source of the gas plume. “Sphincter 1s instruments will sniff and poke around deeper during the next few far side encounters, so we’ll soon have it nailed.”

Following today’s news conference, normally staid and serious space program reporters were overheard joking and laughing. “We just spent 5 years and 50 million dollars to conclusively show that the rear of Uranus looks like, guess what, your anus. Well duh!”

07.17.09

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