592952 external_news 1498488325 1498496244 Uranus rotates on its side, like it was the last one to leave a planetary happy hour. That quirk helps make the ice giant one of the weirder planets in our solar system. Now new research co-authored by Carol Paty, associate professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, suggests that off-kilter rotation may be responsible for Uranus' light-switch magnetosphere, one that opens and closes to solar winds unlike Earth's, which stays in the same position. 

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