Uranus’ southern circulation revealed by Voyager 2: Unique characteristics

Abstract Revised calibration and processing of 1600 images of Uranus by Voyager 2 revealed dozens of discrete features south of −45° latitude, where only a single feature was known from Voyager images and none has been seen since. Tracking of these features over five weeks defined the southern rotational profile of Uranus with high accuracy and no significant gap. The profile has kinks unlike previous profiles and is strongly asymmetric with respect to the northern profile by Sromovsky et al. (Sromovsky, L.A., Fry, P.M., Hammel, H.B., de Pater, I., Rages, K.A. [2012]. Icarus 220, 694–712). The asymmetry is larger than that of all previous data on jovian planets. A spot that included the South Pole off-center rotated with a period of 12.24 h, 2 h outside the range of all previous observations of Uranus. The region between −68° and −59° latitude rotated almost like a solid body, with a shear that was about 30 times smaller than typical shears on Uranus. At lower latitudes, features were sheared into tightly wound spirals as Voyager watched. The zone at −84° latitude was exceptionally bland; reflectivity variations were only 18 ppm, consistent with a signal-to-noise ratio estimated at 55,000. The low noise was achieved by smoothing over dozens of pixels per image and averaging 1600 images. The presented data set in eight filters contains rich information about temporal evolution and spectral characteristics of features on Uranus that will be the basis for further analysis.