So the sole flyby we’ve ever done of Uranus was by Voyager 2 in 1986. Of the many odd things about this planet, one extra strange thing observed by the spacecraft involved Uranus’ magnetic field. Namely, despite having radiation belts in its magnetosphere that were second only to Jupiter in intensity, there was no clear source of the energized particles or plasma that fed the belts.

However, new analyses of the 1986 data suggests that an unusual solar wind event may have been taking place during Voyager 2’s flyby of the planet, causing a change in its magnetosphere and temporarily stripping it of the plasma. According to scientists, these conditions occur about 4% of the time, and they just so happened to be taking place during the flyby. They suspect that Uranus’ magnetic field would have looked quite different had the flyby taken place even just a few days earlier.

Isn’t that wild?