Facts About Uranus | Astonishing facts about Uranus | Facts about uranus for kids
History:
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. Uranus is similar in composition to Neptune, and both have bulk chemical compositions which differ from that of the larger gas giants Jupiter and Saturn.
Distance from Sun: 2.871 billion km
Orbital period: 84 years
Discovered: 13 March 1781
Length of day: 0d 17h 14m
Discoverer: William Herschel
Facts About Uranus | Astonishing facts about Uranus | Facts about uranus for kids
Uranus is too dim for ancient civilizations to have seen it.This is why there has been no mention of Uranus sightings before William Herschel saw it through his telescope in 1781. He had been surveying stars, including those that were ten times dimmer than visible stars.When he looked through the telescope and saw a strange, slow-spinning object, Herschel wasn’t sure what he was looking at was a planet. The British astronomer thought it was a comet or a star. It took some time for others to confirm that Uranus was a planet because it follows a planetary orbit.
The funny thing is this makes Uranus the first planet to have been discovered in modern times! Ancient people had already scanned the skies and discovered six of our nine planets that we recognize today (the other modern discoveries were Neptune and Pluto (now classified as a dwarf planet), too dim to the naked eye).
Uranus is the only planet that is named after a Greek god. This curious fact has something to do with how Latin (which the Romans spoke) and Greek words were so closely interconnected in the minds of people during the Renaissance, when Uranus was discovered. It seems that Johann Bode, the German astronomer that settled on the name Uranus, may not have liked how the Latin name for the father of Saturn, Caelus, sounded. He may have preferred ‘Uranus’, and so that’s what this planet beyond Saturn came to be called.
Temperature :
Uranus is the coldest atmosphere in the solar system and it’s not hard to see why. It’s over 19 times further away from the sun than the Earth is! the temperature on the planet can get as low as -224 degree Celsius.
The planet can get as hot as it gets cold. Where the sun’s radiation hits the planet’s outer atmosphere layers, temperatures can get as hot as 577 degrees C. The core may get as hot as 4,727 degrees (which is nothing to Jupiter’s 24,000 degree C core). But the sun is far away from Uranus, so the furnace in the core of Uranus probably plays a much larger role in keeping the planet warm.
Facts About Uranus | Astonishing facts about Uranus | Facts about uranus for kids
other:
A lot of other names had been rejected in the naming of Uranus. These included Hypercronius (which means ‘above Saturn’) and even the dreadful Georgium Sidus (meaning ‘The Georgian Planet’) with which Herschel wanted to flatter the then-King of England George III. Thankfully Herschel’s sycophantic attempts to name Uranus was not popular, or we wouldn’t have ‘your-anus’ in our midst anymore!
There’s a lot more to learn about fascinating Uranus and its five major rocky moons: Miranda, Titania, Ariel, Umbriel, and Oberon.
Uranus has 13 presently known rings. All except two Uranian are extremely narrow – they are usually a few kilometres wide. It is believed that the rings are probably quite young. The matter within the rings is thought to be parts of a moon or moons that were shattered by high speed impacts with an object such as a comet or asteroi.
Uranus’ rings differ from those found around Saturn in both the size of its particles and the particles’ composition. First, the particles making up Saturn’s rings are small, with few larger than several meters in diameter, whereas Uranus’ rings contain many bodies up to twenty meters in diameter. Second, the particles of Saturn’s rings are largely composed of ice. Uranus’, however, are composed of both ice and considerable dust and debris.
People also ask
What is special about Uranus?
Orbit and Rotation - Uranus is the only planet whose equator is nearly at a right angle to its orbit, with a tilt of 97.77 degrees – possibly the result of a collision with an Earth-sized object long ago. This unique tilt causes the most extreme seasons in the solar system.
What is Uranus made of?
Uranus is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system (the other is Neptune). Most (80% or more) of the planet's mass is made up of a hot dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane, and ammonia – above a small rocky core.
How old is Uranus?
4.503 billion years
Uranus was formed at the same time as the rest of the Solar System, from a large spinning disk of gas and dust. Astronomers think that all this happened about 4.6 billion years ago! So Uranus is about 4.6 billion years old.
Why is Uranus named?
It was German astronomer Johann Bode who recommended the name Uranus, a Latinized version of the Greek god of the sky, Ouranos; however, the name Uranus didn't gain full acceptance until the mid-1800s.
Why is Uranus not a planet anymore?
Like the classical planets, Uranus is visible to the naked eye, but it was never recognised as a planet by ancient observers because of its dimness and slow orbit.
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