Atmosphere of Uranus vast. The number density of atomic hydrogen in the corona falls slowly with the distance from the planet, remaining as high a few hundred atoms per cm at a few radii from Uranus. The effects of this bloated exosphere include a drag on small particles orbiting Uranus, causing a general depletion of dust in the Uranian rings. The infalling dust in turn contaminates the upper atmosphere of the planet. Uranus has a relatively bland appearance, lacking broad colorful bands and large clouds prevalent on Jupiter and Saturn. No discrete features were observed in Uranus's atmosphere before 1986. The most conspicuous
X-ray astronomy "The solar wind—a fast-moving stream of particles from the sun—interacts with the comet's broader cloud of atoms. This causes the solar wind to light up with X-rays, and that's what Swift's XRT sees", said Stefan Immler, of the Goddard Space Flight Center. This interaction, called charge exchange, results in X-rays from most comets when they pass within about three times Earth's distance from the Sun. Because Lulin is so active, its atomic cloud is especially dense. As a result, the X-ray-emitting region extends far sunward of the comet. X-ray astronomy X-ray astronomy is an observational branch of astronomy which deals