Excited astronomers have noticed that extreme storms on Uranus featuring huge and tremendously brilliant cloud systems are showing them more details about this planet.

The storms revealed the planet's hazy blue-green atmosphere despite Uranus being 30 times farther away from the Sun than our planet.

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Imke de Pater, professor and chair of astronomy at the University of California, Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy and their team used the Keck Telescope in Hawaii to detect eight large storms raging across the planet's northern hemisphere last August 5 and 6.

Dr. Hammel said this type of activity would have occurred in 2007 when Uranus' once every 42-year equinox occurred and the sun shines directly on the equator.

One of the brightest storms on Uranus they've seen is at 2.2 microns, a wavelength that detects clouds just below the tropopause where pressure ranges from 300 to 500 millibars, or half the pressure at the Earth's surface.

The storm contributed 30 percent of all light reflected by the rest of the planet at this wavelength.

Planetary scientist at the University of Wisconsin Larry Sromovsky said the colors and morphology of the cloud system suggests the storm might be tied to a vortex in the deeper atmosphere, similar to two large cloud complexes seen during the equinox.

Kunio Sayanagi, an Assistant Professor at Hampton University in Virginia and leader of another team of astronomers, activated the "Target of Opportunity" proposal on the Hubble Space Telescope that scanned Uranus on October 14.

HST's observation at a variety of wavelengths revealed numerous storm components over a distance of more than 9,000 kilometers (5,760 miles) and clouds at a variety of altitudes.

Tagsuranus storms, storms, atmosphere, uranus atmosphere, uranus weather, uranus extreme storms, keck observatory, keck telescope, solar system, equinox, Hubble Space Telescope