That's not what the article says. It says that, thanks to its unusual axis of rotation (it's lying on its side, with the axis more or less parallel with the ecliptic, unlike every other planet), it spends decades in solstice (sun mostly shining on a polar region) and decades in equinox (sun mostly shining on the equator). During periods of equinox, the day/night cycle rapidly rotates the surface of the planet into and out of the sun's light which causes all kinds of interesting weather phenomena.
During solstice, where the sun just steadily warms one pole, not much happens.
The article concludes by saying that it's boring, but only some of the time.
The article literally proposes and refutes that hypothesis. No, the longer answer is that:
1: The Voyager shots featuring a featureless orb were shot near the Uranian solstice, so each hemisphere was getting nearly constant illumination (Uranus is tilted on its side). If you look at it now nearer the equinox (where it has a day/night cycle) you see storms and clouds. And...
2: The cloud patterns are always there anyway, they are just hidden by a methane fog that blocks visible light during the solstice. The heating/cooling cycles of the midyear break up this haze and it looks more transparent.
I got the impression that it was because of the methane cloud blocking things below in combination with the cold (as cold=less energy=less movement/"weather").
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The short answer is: "because clickbait titles is part of the industry, it's not really that boring."
The longer answer it is sometimes too cold to make the same cool cloud patterns in the visual spectrum Jupiter and Saturn have.
That's not what the article says. It says that, thanks to its unusual axis of rotation (it's lying on its side, with the axis more or less parallel with the ecliptic, unlike every other planet), it spends decades in solstice (sun mostly shining on a polar region) and decades in equinox (sun mostly shining on the equator). During periods of equinox, the day/night cycle rapidly rotates the surface of the planet into and out of the sun's light which causes all kinds of interesting weather phenomena.
During solstice, where the sun just steadily warms one pole, not much happens.
The article concludes by saying that it's boring, but only some of the time.
The article literally proposes and refutes that hypothesis. No, the longer answer is that:
1: The Voyager shots featuring a featureless orb were shot near the Uranian solstice, so each hemisphere was getting nearly constant illumination (Uranus is tilted on its side). If you look at it now nearer the equinox (where it has a day/night cycle) you see storms and clouds. And...
2: The cloud patterns are always there anyway, they are just hidden by a methane fog that blocks visible light during the solstice. The heating/cooling cycles of the midyear break up this haze and it looks more transparent.
The longer answer it is too cold to make the same cool cloud patterns in the visual spectrum Jupiter and Saturn have.
That's not what the articles says at all.
The more interesting question is ”Why does Neptune have interesting visible-light features even though it’s even farther from the sun than Uranus?”
Someone please make a crowdsourced browser extension for news articles that answer clickbait titles, similar to:
https://twitter.com/savedyouaclick
I got the impression that it was because of the methane cloud blocking things below in combination with the cold (as cold=less energy=less movement/"weather").