Scientists Guess That Uranus Probably Smells Pretty Bad

You will never know for sure what Uranus smells like.

It’s difficult enough for scientists to see Uranus, let alone travel there to get an idea of what it may smell like. But they can speculate based on the prominent elements on the icy planet.

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The planet itself is made up of mostly water, methane and ammonia, but there are other compounds like hydrosulfide and ammonia in the atmosphere as well. Based on these compounds that are also present here on Earth, we can hypothesize what Uranus probably smells like. Although it’s important to note that even if we could make it to Uranus, we wouldn’t be able to survive long enough to take a whiff, Mark Hofstadter of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Gizmodo.

Additionally he said that the planet is so cold that there isn’t much to smell. But in the case of a cloud of Uranus’s compounds forming, then it would smell.

Methane by itself doesn’t have a smell, but if a cloud of the hydrogen sulfide or the ammonia found in the atmosphere forms it gets stinky, said Hofstadter. They hydrosulfide would smell similar to rotten eggs in cloud form (it’s what makes human gas smell), and ammonia smells like the products you probably use to clean your windows. Neither smell is pleasant.