URANUS

URANUS

1st planet truly discovered in modern era; not known to the ancients.

URANUS

William Herschel (1738-1822) made great improvements to the resolving power of the telescope. With this improvement he made several discoveries.

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He was the first to find that the fuzzy and mysterious objects astronomers see are actually made of many stars. He had discovered what a galaxy is.

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In 1781 he spotted a star that appeared to be moving noticeably through space. He did careful analysis of the motion and found that the “star” was orbiting the Sun. He had discovered Uranus.

Can you see it?

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Uranus is named for the Greek god of the sky. Like other Greek gods, Uranus is adopted into Roman mythology, but retains the original name. Uranus is the father Saturn and the grandfather of Jupiter.

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It is 14.5 times �the mass of the Earth.

It is an average of� 2.8x10⁹ km from the Sun.

It’s orbital period� is 82 years.

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Available information about the interior of the ice giant planets is conflicted. They are theorized to have a rocky core surrounded by a mantle of “ices”. Above the mantle some sources suggest a liquid hydrogen /helium layer, others report it as a gas.

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When the water, ammonia, and methane in the mantle are under enormous pressure they become solid/slushy and very hot. In the language of chemistry water, ammonia, and methane in this state are called “ices”. Therefor Uranus and Neptune are known as Ice Giants, even though their interiors are hot.

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The atmosphere is mostly H with smaller amounts of He, ammonia, and methane.

In visible light Uranus’ atmosphere appears uniform with no banding. However some banding can be seen in other wavelengths.

Visible Light

Infrared Light

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Uranus lies and spins on its side. Its rotational axis is tilted 98° to its orbit; possibly caused by a head-on collision, but this is uncertain.

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It has a magnetic field, but it is tilted 50° to its rotational axis and is off center by about 4000km. There are no plausible explanations for this.

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Uranus has over 24 moons, all named for Shakespearean characters.

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Its largest moon is Miranda. It has an odd mishmash patch worked surface; possibly the result of a major collision in its past.

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The Verona Rupes on the surface of Miranda are the tallest cliffs in the solar system at ~10km tall.

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Uranus has a very faint ring system. It’s rings are very distinct from each other. Current data from Voyager probes and Hubble show 13 separate rings.