Uranus

The noted British astronomer, Ser William Herschel, discovered Uranus on March 13, 1781. The planet had been observed numerous times by other astronomers as early as 1690, but they all thought it was another star. Herschel used a 15-centimeter telescope that was designed and built. Herschel made all of his own telescopes. Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and the third biggest and fourth most massive planet in the solar system. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky. Uranus was the first planet discovered in modern time. Like some of the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere, and multiple moons. Uranus revolves around the Sun once every 84 years. The average distance from the Sun is roughly 3 billion km. The rotational period of the inside of Uranus is 17 hours, 14 minutes. Uranus’ axis of rotation lies on its side. And has an axial tilt of 98 degrees. This makes its seasons unlike those of other major planets. Only a narrow strip around the equator experiences a rapid day-night cycle, but with the Sun really low over the horizon as in the Earth’s polar regions. Each pole gets around 42 years of continuous sunlight, but then there is 42 years of darkness. The most recent equinox was on December 2007. Uranus was only visited by only one spacecraft on Jan. 24, 1987. Uranus is hotter at its equator than at its poles. The total mass of ice in Uranus’ interior is unknown. The standard model of Uranus’ structure is that it consists of 3 layers: a rocky in the center, an icy mantle in the middle and an outer gaseous helium envelope. The core is really small, with a mass of only 0.55. Uranus has 27 known natural satellites. The names for the satellites are chosen from the work of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. The five main satellites are Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon. When Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it had seen a total of 10 cloud features across the whole planet. From March to May 2004, a few large clouds appeared in the atmosphere, giving it the look of Neptune. Some observations included record-breaking winds wind speeds of 229 mps and a thunderstorm called “Fourth of July fireworks”. On August 23, 2006 researches at the SSI (Space Science Institute) and the UOW (University of Wisconsin) observed a dark on Uranus’ surface.