By analyzing specific wavelengths of light emitted from Uranus, they could examine the ’emission lines’ or ‘spectral barcodes’ from the planet. These lines, particularly from a charged particle known as H3+, vary in brightness based on the temperature and density of this layer of the atmosphere, serving as a kind of cosmic thermometer.
Uranus’s Atmospheric Chemistry
What the team found was a distinct increase in H3+ density in Uranus’s atmosphere, accompanied by negligible temperature changes — a pattern consistent with ionization processes of an infrared aurora.