Characteristics of The Planet Uranus..
Characteristics of The Planet Uranus..
Characteristics of The Planet Uranus..
Far, far from the sun, Uranus has a blue-green atmosphere that hints at its
makeup. One of the two ice giants, the planets composition differs somewhat
from Jupiter and Saturn in that it is made up of more ice than gas.
"Uranus and Neptune are really unique in our solar system. They're very
different planets than the other ones we think of," planetary scientist Amy Simon
said on NASA's Gravity Assist podcast. "Part of the reason we call them ice
giants is because they actually have a lot of water ice. So, while some of the
other gas giant planets are mostly hydrogen and helium, they're predominately
water and other ices."
The core of Uranus is made out of heavier, rocky and metal elements.
William Herschel
Fact 1
Frederick William Herschel was born in Hanover, Germany on 15 November
1738 and died on 25 August 1822.
Fact 2
He went into the Military Band of Hanover like his father, before going to Britain
at the age of 19.
Fact 3
He became well known for his finding of the planet Uranus and its 2 major moons
Titania and Oberon. He also discovered the 2 moons of Saturn.
The more we learn about life on Earth, the more we realize that it can live
in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet: encased in ice, in boiling
water, and even in places with high radiation. But could life exist elsewhere in the
Solar System? Could there be life on Uranus?
There are a few problems. The first is the fact that Uranus has no solid surface.
It’s mostly composed of ices: methane, water and ammonia. And then it’s
enshrouded by an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. The second is that
Uranus is really cold. Its cloud tops measure 49 K (?224 °C), and then it gets
warmer inside down to the core, which has a temperature of 5,000 .
TRIVIA ABOUT URANUS
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, orbiting at a distance of 2.88 billion
km. But it’s still much closer than Neptune, which averages a distance of 4.5
billion km from the Sun. However, this does not prevent Uranus from being colder
than Neptune. Whereas the former experiences an average temperature of 72 K
(-201 °C/-330 °F), reaching a low of 55 K (-218 °C/-360 °F).
All of the planets in the Solar System rotate on their axis, with a tilt that’s similar
to the Sun. In many cases, planet’s have an axial tilt, where one of their poles will
be inclined slightly towards the Sun. For example, the axis of the Earth’s rotation
is tilted 23.5-degrees away from the Sun’s plane. Mars is similar, with a tilt of
about 24 degrees, which results in seasonal changes on both planets.
But the axial tilt of Uranus is a staggering 99 degrees! In other words, the planet
is rotating on its side. All the planets look a bit like spinning top as they go around
the Sun, but Uranus looks more like a ball rolling in a circular pattern. And this
leads to another strange fact about Uranus…
A sidereal day on Uranus (that is, the time it takes for the planet to complete a
single oration on its axis) is only about 17 hours long. But the tilt of Uranus is so
pronounced that one pole or the other is usually pointed towards the Sun. This
means that a day at the north pole of Uranus lasts half of a Uranian year – 84
Earth years.
So, if you could stand on the north pole of Uranus, you would see the Sun rise in
the sky and circle around for 42 years. By the end of this long, drawn-out
“summer”, the Sun would finally dip down below the horizon. This would be
followed by 42 years of darkness, otherwise known as a single “winter” season
on Uranus.