The first planet to be give away by scope , Uranus is the nearest of the two " Methedrine hulk " in the solar system . Because we ’ve not visited in over 30 years , much of the major planet and its inner workings persist unknown . What scientistsdoknow , however , suggests a mind - botch up world of rhombus rainwater and mysterious moonlight . Here is what you need to know about Uranus .
1. Uranus’s moons are named after characters from literature.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun , the fourth largest by size , and ranks seventh by tightness . ( Saturn win as least - dense . ) It has 27 known lunar month , each name for characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope . It is about 1784 million miles from the Sun ( we ’re 93 million stat mi away from the Sun , or 1 astronomical unit of measurement ) , and is four time wide than Earth . Planning a slip ? work a crownwork , as the efficacious temperature of its upper atmosphere is -357 ° atomic number 9 . One Uranian yr last 84 Earth years , which seems pretty long , until you consider one Uranian twenty-four hour period , which lasts 42 Earth long time . Why ?
2. Uranus rotates in a unique way.
Most planet , as they orbit the Sun , rotate erect , spin like tops — some faster , some deadening , but top - spinning all the same . Not Uranus ! As it circles the Sun , its move is more like a ballock rolling along its orbit . This means that for each hemisphere of the planet to go from 24-hour interval to night , you need to complete half an orbit : 42 Earth age . ( Note that this is not the duration of a all over revolution , which exact about 17.25 hours . ) While nobody hump for sure what cause this 98 - degree tilt , the prevailing speculation involve a major planetary collision early in its history . And unlike Earth ( but like Venus ! ) , it revolve east to west .
3. Uranus is an exception to the planetary naming convention.
You might have noticed that every non - Earth planet in the solar system is named for a Roman deity . ( Earth did n’t make the cut because when it was named , nobody knew it was a major planet . It was just … everything . ) There is an exclusion to the Roman - god rule : Uranus . Moving outwards from Earth , Mars is ( sometimes ) the son of Jupiter , and Jupiter is the son of Saturn . So who is Saturn ’s Church Father ? well question ! In Greek mythology , it is Ouranos , who has no precise equivalent in Roman mythology ( Caelus is close ) , though his name was on social function Latinized by poet as — you infer it!—Uranus . So to keep things gracious and tidy , Uranus it was when finally naming this newly get wind world . Little did uranologist realise how greatly they would disrupt skill classroom evermore .
apropos , it is not pronounced " your anus , " but rather , " urine us " … which is barely an improvement .
4. Uranus is one of only two ice giants.
Uranus and Neptune comprise the solar system ’s crank giants . ( Other class of planets include the terrestrial planet , the gas giant , and the midget planets . ) icing giants are not giant chunk of ice in space . Rather , the name refers to their formation in the interstellar medium . Hydrogen and He , which only subsist as gases in interstellar space , form planet like Jupiter and Saturn . Silicates and atomic number 26 , meanwhile , formed places like Earth . In the interstellar medium , molecules like pee , methane , and ammonia consist an in - between state , capable to be as gases or ices depending on the local conditions . When those molecules were found by Voyager to have an across-the-board presence in Uranus and Neptune , scientist called them " ice giants . "
5. Uranus doesn’t give off much heat.
satellite form hot . A small satellite can cool off and beam away warmth over the eld of the solar system . A big major planet can not . It has n’t cooled enough alone on the interior after shaping , and thus radiates heat . Jupiter , Saturn , and Neptune all give off significantly more heat than they receive from the Sun . Puzzlingly , Uranus is different .
" Uranus is the only jumbo satellite that is not give off importantly more heat than it is receiving from the Sun , and we do n’t know why that is , " saysMark Hofstadter , a planetary scientist at NASA ’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory . He tells Mental Floss that Uranus and Neptune are thought to be similar in terms of where and how they formed .
So why is Uranus the only major planet not giving off heat ? " The self-aggrandizing query is whether that heat is trapped on the interior , and so the interior is much hotter than we expect , right now , " Hofstadter sound out . " Or did something happen in its history that allow all the internal heat get relinquish much more quickly than expected ? "
The planet ’s extreme tilt might be come to . If it were make by an impact event , it is potential that the hit overturned the viscera of the planet and helped it chill more rapidly . " The bottom line , " says Hofstadter , " is that we do n’t know . "
6. Uranus rains diamonds bigger than grizzly bears.
Although it ’s really cold in the Uranian upper atmosphere , it begin really red-hot , really fast as you reach profoundly . Couple that with the frightful pressure sensation in the Uranian interior , and you get the conditions for literal diamond rain . And not just small rain diamondlets , either , but diamonds that aremillions of caratseach — bigger than your averagegrizzly bear . Note also that this heat means the ice titan hold relatively petty ice . smother a rocky core is what is thought to be a massive ocean — though one unlike you might find on Earth . Down there , the heat and pressure keep the ocean in an " in between " state that is extremely reactive and ionic .
7. Uranus has a baker’s dozen of baby rings.
Unlike Saturn ’s preening hoops , the 13 rings of Uranus are dark and presentiment , likely constitute of ice and radiation - processed constitutive material . The rings are made more of ball than of dust , and are believably very untested indeed : something on the order of 600 million years honest-to-goodness . ( For comparison , the oldest known dinosaurs roamed the Earth about240 million age ago . )
8. We’ve been to Uranus before and will be back.
The only ballistic capsule to ever chit-chat Uranus was NASA ’s Voyager 2 in 1986 , which discovered 10 new moons and two Modern rings during its unmarried passing from 50,000 miles up . Because of the transparent bizarreness and wonder of the planet , scientists have been itch to return ever since . Some query can only be answered with a raw space vehicle mission . central among them : What is the theme of the major planet ? What are the interactions of the solar wind with the magnetic athletic field ? ( That ’s significant for empathise various processes such as the heating system of the upper standard pressure and the satellite ’s Department of Energy deposition . ) What are the geological details of its artificial satellite , and the structure of the rings ?
The Voyager spacecraft gave scientists a peek at the two methamphetamine hydrochloride giants , and now it ’s fourth dimension to contemplate them up near and in profoundness . Hofstadter compares the need for an chalk - giants mission to what happened after the Voyagers visited Jupiter and Saturn . NASA set in motion Galileo to Jupiter in 1989 and Cassini to Saturn in 1997 . ( Cassini was lately direct on asuicide missioninto Saturn . ) Those commission arrived at their various systems and proved transformative to the field of planetary science .
" Just as we had to get a closer flavour at Europa and Enceladus to substantiate that there are potentially inhabitable ocean there , the Uranus and Neptune system can have similar thing , " says Hofstadter . " We ’d wish to go there and see them up close . We need to go into the organization . "
