The planet Uranus is hard to see in the night sky. It has a strange orbit and 27 moons, but there’s more to it than that! Learn about its history and science here.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun, and it’s one of the most fascinating celestial objects in our solar system. The planet was discovered by William Herschel on March 13th, 1781.
It takes roughly 84 Earth years to orbit around the sun once! But what else do you need to know about Uranus? In this blog post, we will discuss everything there is to know about Uranus, including its size, temperature range, rings, and moons.
Uranus Size
The diameter of the Uranus is 50,724 kilometers. This makes Uranus 4 times as wide as Earth, and it is the third-largest planet in our solar system. Uranus also has a low density of just 86% of Earth. This means that a 100-pound person would weigh 86 pounds!
Uranus Temperature
Uranus has a very thin atmosphere, so it is not able to protect the surface of the planet from radiation that comes in from space. The temperature of Uranus is around -353 degrees Fahrenheit (-213,8 degrees Celsius).
How Uranus Rotates
Uranus is a very tilted planet, which means that it rotates around the sun in an unusual way. It spins on its side with one pole always pointed towards the sun!
Uranus Moons
Uranus has 27 moons. They have been named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.
The first two moons discovered were named Titania and Oberon. These two moons are the largest, and they were discovered by William Herschel on January 11, 1787! Uranus moons are divided into three groups: inner moons, major moons, and irregular moons.
The most widely known moons are Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon.
Uranus Surface
It is difficult to imagine a planet with no surface. Uranus, an ice giant in the vast cosmos, only has fluid swirling around its core. There is no surface to explore, but it does have clouds and an atmosphere.
Voyager 2 managed to pass next to Uranus in 1986 and observed a total of ten cloud features across the entire planet. In addition, Voyager’s observations have revealed that some parts of the planet’s surface area are covered by clouds while other regions do not show any signs at all.
Uranus Has Rings!
Uranus has nine bright rings and several other faint rings. Most of the rings contain ice particles, and dust can also be found in them.
The rings of Uranus are composed mostly of smaller objects, ranging from millimeters to meters in size.
They can’t be seen with the naked eye, but they were discovered by scientists using telescopic observations made through Earth-based telescopes and space probes flying just above Saturn’s atmosphere.
Most of the Uranus’ ring system consists largely of outgassing particles that have been spewed into outer space because of collisions among these smaller chunks at high speeds within its orbit.
Uranus is a mystery. Scientists are still unsure of how it formed and grew, but they have determined that the rings surrounding this planet may be as young as 600 million years old meaning these rings could hold clues to understanding not only Uranus’ formation but also possible nearby worlds or even other planets in our solar system.
Can’t Support Life
Sadly, Uranus is not even able to support life. It’s an ice giant with no surface and it has a very thin atmosphere made mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane!
This makes life very hard and impossible to sustain. At least, the kind of life we know till now!
Last Thoughts
All in all, it’s safe to say that Uranus is not a planet for the faint of heart.
It requires patience and dedication to learn about this distant world, but if you get over your initial confusion (and fear), there are plenty of interesting facts waiting for you on this green-blue orb!
We hope that this blog post has given you a better insight into Uranus and its history.
