Uranus

Uranus was discovered in 1781 and is the first planet to be discovered with a telescope. It is the seventh planet from the sun and is just barely visible to the naked eye. Through the lens of a telescope it appears to be green. Like Saturn, Uranus does have rings around it.

It is classified as one of the four giant planets, but is the smallest of the four with a mass of about 14 times that of Earth. It is also about three times the size of the earth. The atmosphere around the planet contains methane, hydrogen and helium. Scientists do believe that the inner core contains solid methane and ammonia as well as a ice. The surface temperature is about -184ºC/-300ºF.

Uranus is about 19 times farther from the sun as the Earth is. It rotates on its axis once every 10.75 hours and takes 84 years to complete a revolution around the sun. The equator of this planet is tiled about 30º more than its orbit – the only planet in which this occurs. It also rotates in the opposite direction as the revolutions. The magnetic field is very peculiar because it does not originate from the geometric center of the planet. Instead it originates from a point that is about one-third of the way to its south pole.

There have been thirteen rings discovered around the planet. The rings consist of numerous boulders, which are quite huge and each ring is thought to be a band about 11,000 – 16,0000 miles above the surface of the planet. Some of the smaller, inner rings are only 6 miles wide, while the larger, outside rings are up to 100 miles in width. There are gaps in the rings, which suggests to scientists that the rings are younger than the planet and were formed at later dates.

Uranus has five satellites and all of them lie in the plane of its equator. They revolve in the same direction as the planet. Each satellite has a diameter of several hundred miles and revolve around the planet in a few days.