4. It is also the coldest planet in the Solar System with temperatures dropping as low as -224 degrees. This is why there has been no mention of Uranus sightings before William Herschel saw it through his telescope in... 3. The British astronomer thought it was a comet or a star. 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. Such a discovery has somewhat changed the way we think about the formation of planets in our solar system. The new name followed a tradition of naming new planets after Roman mythological deities. Currently, NASA is evaluating the possibility of future missions to Uranus and Neptune to help in the upcoming Planetary Decadal Survey. In fact, Uranus has a thick, smoggy atmosphere that becomes denser the deeper you go. Uranus as seen by the human eye (left) and with colored filters (right). Uranus was the first of three planets to have been discovered, thanks to the invention of the telescope. 11. Uranus gets its blue-green color from m… The results of the survey will help NASA determine its planetary science priorities going into the future. Neptune, however, which is almost similar in size of Uranus, emits 2.6 times the heat it receives from the Sun. Traveling to other planets has always been quite a challenge. 2. Compare with Earth temperatures, where the coldest it’s got in recent years was a record -93.2 degrees C in Antarctica in 2013. Mars is the Roman god of war, for instance. Unlike the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn, which are mostly made up of... Uranus has the coldest temperature of … The atmosphere is made up of 83% hydrogen, 15% helium, and 2% methane. No planet other than Uranus has such a screwball way of spinning around the sun! Uranus was the first ever planet to be discovered with the help of a telescope. It has a mass of 8.68 x 10 25 kg. Here are some Uranus facts for children. Uranus has a total of 27 moons, each of which is named after characters in the works of Alexander Pope, William Shakespeare. Fun Uranus Facts For Kids – Amazing Facts About Uranus Outer Space Facts For Kids , Science Facts For Kids We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Like all ice and gas giants in the solar system, Uranus also has rings. This contrasts Triton, which was captured by Neptune’s gravitational pull. The radioactive element uranium was named after Uranus when it was discovered in 1789, just eight years after the planet was discovered.Kid-Friendly UranusResources Uranus was the first planet to be discovered with the help of a telescope. 26. Wind speeds on giant planets can be as much as 15 times stronger than winds on Earth. 8. Uranus is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system (the other is Neptune). Most (80 percent 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. CTRL + SPACE for auto-complete. The last of these 27 moons was discovered in 2003. 14. Several astronomers also confirmed his observations and led him to conclude that he had indeed discovered a new planet. This was the first planet to be discovered using a telescope. In other words, a 10 feet dunk on Earth would equate to an 11 feet dunk on Uranus. In the heart of the icy smog of the planet is rock that is about the size of the earth. 13. 18. The vessel collected valuable information about the planet and also took numerous photographs of the planet. Uranus has only received one visit by a spacecraft. When William Herschel first discovered the planet in 1781, the English astronomer named it the Georgium Sidus (the Georgian Planet) in honor of King George III. 21. by Matt Williams Ten Interesting Facts About Uranus The gas (and ice) giant known as Uranus is a fascinating place. At... Uranus turns on its axis once every 17 hours, 14 minutes. While other planets rotate on their axis with a tilt relative to the sun, the axial tilt of Uranus is far more pronounced. 15 Interesting Facts About Uranus. “Uranus orbits the Sun every 84 Earth years.”. 25. The planet orbits about 1.79 billion miles away from the sun. Uranus and Venus turn in a retrograde direction which is … But the icy winds of Uranus can uproot trees, dislodge houses and do a lot more damage in seconds than we’ve seen on Earth. Other planets were visible to the naked eye, so they were discovered before astronomical inventions were made. This makes Uranus the third-largest by size. The funny thing is this makes Uranus the first planet to have been discovered in modern times! Uranus has a blue appearance that makes the study of atmospheric patterns much more difficult compared to Saturn and Jupiter. Uranus is the seventh most distant planet in the Solar System. Scientists believe that the rings are relatively young and might not have been formed during the formation of the planet. 3. Uranus, however, is named after the Greek god of the sky, Ouranos or Uranus. The rocky substance on the moon is thought to be made of carbonaceous matter. Uranus is too dim for ancient civilizations to have seen it. Facts about Uranus for Kids: Uranus has the coldest temperatures of all of the planets, hitting as low as -224 degrees C. Uranus has a tilted axis and it’s thought that a collision with another large celestial object was the cause of it. The moons of Uranus are, however, considered small and somewhat irregular. That’s not exactly supersonic speed (the speed of sound in air is 750 miles per hour) so a stationary jet in the path of the crashing wind won’t experience a sonic boom like it would on Neptune. The planet has, therefore, been spotted multiple times by pre-modern and ancient astronomers who generally mistook it for a distant star due to its relatively low luminosity. The rings are made up of dark particles that vary significantly in size. Facts about Uranus Uranus was officially discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781. The planet’s blue appearance is due to the absorption of red light by methane, which then scatters away blue light. It is the only planet that takes its name from Greek (rather than Roman) mythology. Waiting for the ideal circumstances to travel to planets such as Mars or Venus may take months or years. The earliest of such exploration was possibly done by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus in 128 BC. The mean density of the planet ~ 1.27 g/cm3, and the mass of Uranus is 8.68×1025 kg (~ 14.5 times more massive than Earth). Let’s go! The exploration of Uranus has been solely through telescopes and the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986, with no other... 2. The Earth, as we know, spins at an angle of 23 degrees. He was the father of Saturn. 11 Fun Facts About Uranus For Kids Jack Bennett January 16, 2019 Blog No Comments Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun, and wasn’t discovered until 1781 with the help of telescopes, as it was too dim to have been spotted by ancient civilisations … Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and the third-largest planet in our solar system. Ready? 1. Experts believe that this tilt was the result, literally, of several punches to the planet and not just one big collision. The seventh planet from the sun is the 3 rd largest planet in the solar system after Jupiter and Saturn, this planet was discovered centuries ago but only few in the world knows the true myths of Uranus.. About The Planet Uranus. He had been surveying stars, including those that were ten times dimmer than visible stars. It is possible to see Uranus … Both the planet you want to visit and the starting point are in constant motion, which means that a lot of effort has to go into the planning of such trips. The moons around Uranus are all thought to have been formed from the accretion disk around the planet. It took some time for others to confirm that Uranus was a planet because it follows a planetary orbit. It is the second least dense planet; Saturn is the least dense of all. 42. The density of Uranus is one of the lowest in the Solar System with a mean density of 0.0459 lbs/in3. The origin of the particles forming the rings might have been from one or a number of its moons shattered due to high-speed impact. Random Fact 1: Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun! He may have preferred ‘Uranus’, and so that’s what this planet beyond Saturn came to be called. If one stood on either pole of the planet, one would probably and experience 42 years of sunlight and 42 years under cover of darkness. It’s fun to know that the winds of Uranus only blow in very narrow layers that are a very small proportion of the planet’s atmosphere. Despite being the seventh most distant planet from the sun and over a billion miles away from the Earth, Uranus can still be viewed with unaided eyes. Uranus was the husband of Gaia, the goddess of the Earth. Uranus is named after a Greek god, not Roman, like other planets. This means that maybe planets can be created by impact too. However, the rings are not as prominent as those around Saturn. It was discovered in December 13, 1781 by … But do you know, before Sir William Herschel, it was not recognized as a planet? 17. Planet Uranus facts The mean radius of Uranus is ~ 25,362 km (~ 3 times that of Earth). It is the seventh planet from the Sun (Order of the... 2. 10. 15. It is a bright bluish-green color which it gets from the methane in its atmosphere. Uranus is one of the four planets in the solar system that is a gas planet. But there is evidence to suggest that Uranus suffered a collision at least twice. Traveling to planets such as Uranus, on the other hand, could mean that one has to wait a few decades for the ideal conditions. Read also: 300 Crazy Fun Facts To Start Your Day But Uranus’ tilt is so pronounced that generally one pole or the other is pointing towards the Sun. 8 Useful Facts About Uranus. Near the core, it heats up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4,982 degrees Celsius). 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. Uranus was first named George. The pressure on the surface is around 1.3 times that of the earth and the gravity is about 0.9 times that of Earth. 16. The planet’s blue appearance is due to the absorption of red light by methane, which then scatters away blue light. In 2009, the possibility of extending the space mission of the Cassini spacecraft (at the time studying Saturn) to Uranus was discussed but was never actualized. Uranus has the coldest atmosphere in the solar system and it’s not hard to see why. The rings of Uranus are thought to have formed around 600 million years ago from the collision of moons or other big celestial objects. Uranus is too dim for ancient civilizations to have seen it. This will show you how deep the planet’s tilt angle really is. This may have happened at the beginning of the solar system when the moons of Uranus were still balls of gas. 3. Methane makes it aquamarine or cyan in color. The discovery was made in 1781 by an astronomer called William Herschel, who at the time was charting stars in the sky. 24. While Neptune, which is farther away, has the coldest average temperature, Uranus goes into the books for the lowest recorded temperatures. The color of Uranus is blue due to the fact that it has an atmosphere made up of water, ammonia, and methane. The tilt of Uranus may have been caused by a collision. Uranus facts!! Uranus was the first planet to be officially discovered using technology. 20. The planet has a magnitude of 5.3, which falls within the scale of brightness perceivable by the human eye. Uranus, a distant planet in our Solar System that orbits the Sun billions of kilometers from the Earth, but what facts do you know about Uranus? 14 Interesting Facts About Uranus Planet The third largest planet in the solar system, Uranus, looks majestic in its beautiful greenish – blue color. He initially concluded that he had stumbled upon a comet. 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. Cold, windy Uranus looks like a planet on its side. What amazes is the fact that Uranus does not generate any heat which is more than what it receives from the Sun. I thought it would be fun to take a closer look at one of the planets in our Solar System so here are 10 random facts about Uranus. It is the seventh planet from the Sun (Order of the planets from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto (the dwarf planet)). Write CSS OR LESS and hit save. Here are some other interesting facts about Uranus, the oddball planet, that we bet will fascinate you. This is why there has been no mention of Uranus sightings before William Herschel saw it through his telescope in 1781. He further observed that the body was circular. If you love studying planets, you’ll know that most planets are named after Roman gods. Uranus is a giant planet. The sixth planet is Saturn and the eigth planet is Neptune. But you can’t see Uranus. This is easier to understand if you think about how large Uranus is. If you look in the direction of Uranus through a telescope, you will see a bluish-greenish disk. 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. Because of the presence of icy layers, it is also known as the Ice Planet. Fun Facts about the Planet Uranus. Uranus, with its featureless, blue-green disk, is the only planet to be named after a Greek and not a Roman god. 12. Now, there are different theories that explain the inability of Uranus to emit the heat from its core. Nearly all the planets in the solar system get their names from Roman Mythology. The unexpected observation is due to the unique properties of its core, thought to have cooled down at some point. BY David W Brown. 9. Uranus is the 3rd largest planet in the solar system. When he looked through the telescope and saw a … To view the planet, one must, however, ensure that the darkness of the night sky is not subject to light pollution. There’s a lot more to learn about fascinating Uranus and its five major rocky moons: Miranda, Titania, Ariel, Umbriel, and Oberon. By Benjamin Elisha Sawe on November 6 2019 in Environment. What this means is, there’s probably not a lot of weather activity going on deeper into the giant planet of Uranus. 2. All maps, graphics, flags, photos and original descriptions © 2020 worldatlas.com, The 10 Coldest Cities In The United States. Temperatures are freezing -153 degrees C to -218 degrees C in the deeper troposphere where the clouds are. On Planet Uranus (that is, the time it takes for the earth to complete a single oration on its axis) a sidereal day is only around 17 hours long. Uranus is the 7 th planet away from the Sun, and by diameter, is the third largest. Uranus has 27 moons, Jupiter has 67 while the Earth has just one. Each season on Uranus lasts 21 years. Uranus is the \"butt\" of more than a few jokes and witty (and not so witty) puns, but it's also a frequent destination in various fictional stories, such as the video game Mass Effect and TV shows like Doctor Who. Since ancient times it was not recognized due to its dimness and slow orbit. Check out some of the interesting facts about Uranus: 1. Uranus is slightly larger in diameter than its neighbor Neptune, yet smaller in mass. The old theory was that Uranus, Neptune, and the Saturn and Jupiter cores were created by pulling in small floating objects from space around it. It is too dim to have been seen by the ancients. Uranus was the Greek god of the sky and was married to Mother Earth.