URANUS Facts Farthest planet able to be seen

URANUS

Facts • Farthest planet able to be seen without a telescope • 1, 787, 000 miles from the sun • Takes light 2 hours, 40 minutes to reach Earth • Revolution = 84 years or 30, 685 days • Rotation = 17 hr 14 minutes

Facts: • 31, 763 mile diameter (4 x Earth) • Only planet named after a Greek rather than a Roman god • Name comes from Latinized version of the Greek god of the sky. Ouranos

• Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet in 1781 • Uranus is an “Ice Giant” color is blue-green from frozen crystals of methane in clouds • Clouds also have layers of liquid water and ammonia ice • Has a rocky core surrounded by layers of ice

Facts: • Axis tilt is 98 o • Hypothesized that a collision with an Earthsized object knocked the tilt to its present position • Second least dense planet (behind Saturn)density = 1. 27 gm/m. L

Mass • 14 ½ x greater than Earth • 1/20 the mass of Jupiter • 100 lbs on Earth = 90 lbs on Uranus • Greater volume compared to its mass results in lower gravity than Earth

ATMOSPHERE • 83 % H, 15 % He, and 2 % methane • Temperature = -355 o F in atmosphere • 8, 500 o F in rocky core (compared to 42, 000 o F for Jupiter’s core) • Poles receive more sunlight than equator • Winds of about 450 mph

• 27 known satellites • All are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope SATELLITES

SATELLITES • Miranda (second from Uranus above) has “ovoids”, features which resemble a racetrack with crisscrossing ridges

RINGS • More than 10 • Range from 3 to 60 miles wide • No more than 33 ft thick

EXPLORATION • Voyager 2 in 1985 and 1986 • Podcast on Uranus: http: //www. astronomycast. com/20 07/11/episode-62 -uranus/ • Short video on Uranus: https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v =G 7 f 1 nuw. Rq_E