Mysterious bright storms appear on Uranus

[Brian G Turner]

The solar system remains a dynamic place, with a string of surprise - and mysterious - storms currently raging across Uranus:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530052.000-mystery-storms-rage-across-face-of-uranus.html

Am I the only one to think the picture above reminds of the pattern on Jupiter after the Shoemaker-Levy impact?

 

[Mirannan]

Don't you mean Jupiter? But yes, they do look as if they could be impact scars. It's not particularly surprising that the impacting object (if that's what happened) wasn't seen before impact. There's a lot of space at that distance, and it's very poorly lit.

 

[Parson]

I also thought of impact points immediately as i saw the photo. I'd bet that all of the real astronomers have this as their first guess as well.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Don't you mean Jupiter?

I have absolutely no idea why I'd write 'Venus'!! Corrected.

 

[Venusian Broon]

On the other hand they do look very much like the weather patterns; it's 'sister' world Neptune which is very similar in chemical composition seemed to have a lot more when Voyager passed by. Two piccies of Neptune below with sort of similar formations:

and

I see that very bright and noticeable 'clouds' have been observed before on Uranus - at least that was how they were described. I guess they can do a spectroscopic analysis of the light coming off the storms - with knowledge of what Shoemaker-levy produced when it hit Jupiter they might be able to pick up reactants of some comet/asteriod hit, or it might just be whatever the white has come back as methane ice (hence is very likely to be just weather.)

 

[BAYLOR]

They look like massive explosions on the surface.

 

[Harpo]

Hubble just spotted something massive coming out of Uranus | Physics-Astronomy

 

[Parson]

Interesting Harpo, but why do I suspect a bit a childish humor out of that line?