All of these brilliant discoveries by amateur astronomers. Astounding.
I’m not a professional astronomer by a long-shot, and my telescope is not very good. But I think there’s a hole in Uranus...
Mystery world This is not the first time astronomers have spotted bright features in Venus's atmosphere. Bright spots have been seen from Earth for decades, although they have not been clearly explained, Limaye says. The most recent dramatic brightening occurred in January 2007, when areas in both the northern and southern hemispheres of the planet brightened. Because it is localised in a spot, this new feature looks different, but it is equally mysterious. "This shows how much we don't know about Venus," Limaye says. In some ways, Venus is a simpler planet than Earth – it has no oceans and because of its nearly vertical spin axis, practically no seasons, he adds. But planetary scientists still do not understand what causes the planet's atmosphere to rotate 60 times faster than the planet itself.