Vortices in the magnetic tail of Uranus

Over the last twenty years, a still very limited number of extended numerical simulations of the Uranus magnetosphere, showed that large scale magnetic vortices form tailwards of the planet. Their structure is strongly time-dependent on daily and seasonal time scales, both,   because of both, the unusually large 59 deg angle between the magnetic axis and the rotation axis of the planet and the small angle (unique in the solar system) between the rotation axis and the orbital plane. Based on results from 3D magnetohydrodynamic simulations, we comment on the nature and the structure of the vortices at both solstice and equinox.