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Uranus
Uranus as seen by NASA's Voyager.
Uranus as seen by NASA's Voyager.
Diameter 51,118 km
31,763 mi.
Distance from the Sun 2.87 billion km
1.783 billion mi.
Astronomical Unit 19.2
Mass (8.6810±0.0013)×10^25 kg

14.536 Earths

Density 1.27 g/cm^3
Number of moons 27
Length of day 17 hours
Length of year 84 years
Atmosphere Components Hydrogen
Helium
Methane
Symbol Uranus symbol

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It is discovered by William Herschel in 1781.

Surface[]

Like the other gas giants, Uranus lacks a solid, well-defined surface. Instead, the gas, liquid, and icy atmosphere extends to the planet's interior. Were you to land—and hover—at the point where the atmosphere transitions to the interior, you would experience less of a gravitational tug than you might feel on Earth. Gravity on Uranus is only about 90 percent that of Earth; if you weigh a hundred pounds at home, you would only weight 91 pounds on Uranus.

Uranus is the second least dense planet in the solar system, indicating that it is made up mostly of ices. Unlike Jupiter and Saturn, which are composed predominantly of hydrogen and helium, Uranus contains only a small portion of these light elements. It also houses some rocky elements, equal to somewhere between 0.5 to 1.5 times the mass of Earth. But most of the planet is made up of ices, mostly water, methane, and ammonia. Ices dominate because the vast distance to Uranus from the sun allows the planet to maintain frigid temperatures.

Tilt of Uranus[]

Uranus is a real oddball in our Solar System. Its spin axis is tilted by a whopping 98 degrees, meaning it essentially spins on its side. No other planet has anywhere near such a tilt. Jupiter is tilted by 3 degrees, and Earth is tilted by 23 degrees.[1]

Rings[]

Uranus rings1

Uranus's inner rings. The bright outer ring is the epsilon ring; eight other rings are visible

The rings of Uranus were first discovered in 1977 by the astronomical team of James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham, and Douglas J. Mink. When he first discovered Uranus more than 200 years ago, William Herschel also reported seeing rings, but that's probably impossible, because the rings of Uranus are very dark and thin.

Astronomers now know that Uranus has 13 distinct rings. They start at about a distance of 38,000 km from the center of Uranus, and then extend out to about 98,000 km.

Unlike the rings of Saturn, which are very bright and composed of water ice, the rings of Uranus are relatively dark. Instead of containing dust, the rings seem to be made up of larger chunks, measuring 0.2 to 20 m across. These would really qualify as boulders, not dust. They're also very thin. Each ring is only a few km thick.

Uranus now has a total of 10 known rings.

The rings of Uranus are thought to be very young, not more than 600 million years old. They probably came from a few shepherd moons that were shattered by Uranus' gravity and turned into rings around the planet. The chunks collided with each other and turned into smaller and smaller particles.[2]

Moons of Uranus[]

Uranus System

Ariel (left behind Uranus); Miranda (right behind Uranus); Umbriel (upper left); Oberon (top at the center); Titania (upper right).

Uranus has 27 moons in our solar system.

  1. Cordelia
  2. Ophelia
  3. Binaca
  4. Cressida
  5. Desmona
  6. Juliet
  7. Portia
  8. Rosalind
  9. Cupid
  10. Belinda
  11. Perdita
  12. Puck
  13. Mab
  14. Miranda
  15. Ariel
  16. Umbriel
  17. Titania
  18. Oberon
  19. Francisco
  20. Caliban
  21. Stephano
  22. Trinculo
  23. Sycorax
  24. Margaret
  25. Prospero
  26. Setebos
  27. Ferdinand

References[]

  1. https://www.space.com/13231-planet-uranus-knocked-sideways-impacts.html
  2. Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named universetoday
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