Noble Gas Planetology and the Xenon Clouds of Uranus

Abstract

Noble gases provide tracers of cosmic provenance that are accessible to a future Uranus atmospheric probe. Argon and krypton are expected to be well mixed on Uranus with respect to H2 and He, although condensation at the winter pole may be possible. The Ar/H2 and Ar/Kr ratios address whether the materials accreted by Uranus resembled the extremely cold materials accreted by Jupiter’s atmosphere, whether they were warmer, like comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P/C-G), or whether Uranus is like neither. Xenon condenses as an ice, probably on methane ice, in Uranus’s upper troposphere. Condensation may complicate the interpretation of Xe/H2, but it also presents an opportunity to collect concentrated xenon samples suitable for measuring isotopes. Solar system Xe tracks three distinct nucleosynthetic xenon reservoirs, one evident in the Sun and in chondritic meteorites, a second in refractory presolar grains, and a third evident in comet 67P/C-G and in Earth’s air. The first and third reservoirs appear to have been captured from different clouds of gas. The two gases do not appear to have been well mixed; moreover, the high 129Xe/132Xe ratio in 67P/C-G implies that the gas was captured before the initial nucleosynthetic complement of 129I (15.7 Myr half-life) had decayed. Xenon’s isotopic peculiarities, if seen in Uranus, could usefully upset our understanding of planetary origins. Krypton’s isotopic anomalies are more subtle and may prove hard to measure. There is a slight chance that neon and helium fractionations can be used to constrain how Uranus acquired its nebular envelope.