Scientists urge to make Uranus mission a priority

The US space agency Nasa should prioritise a mission to Uranus, an influential panel of scientists says, Reports BBC.

The "ice giant" is the seventh planet in our Solar System, orbiting the Sun 19 times further out than the Earth.

It's only ever been visited once before, in a brief flyby by the Voyager-2 probe in 1986.

Researchers think an in-depth study of Uranus can help them better understand the many similarly sized objects now being discovered around other stars.

The recommendation is made in a document published by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS).

Known as a "decadal survey", it is the summation of what the American research community thinks are the big planetary science questions right now and the space missions required to answer them.

Nasa has broadly followed the recommendations of previous National Academies reports.

The last planetary decadal survey, published in 2011, had as its two top priorities a rock-collection mission to Mars, which became the Perseverance rover, now on the surface of the Red Planet; and a mission to Jupiter and its moon Europa, which is currently being prepared for launch in 2024. This is called the Europa Clipper spacecraft.