1. URANUS

3. Facts Farthest planet able to be seen without a telescope
1,787,000,000 miles from the sun
Takes light 2 hours, 40 minutes to reach Earth
Revolution = 84 years or 30,685 days
Rotation = 17 hr 14 minutes

4. Facts: 31,763 mile diameter (4x Earth)
Only planet named after a Greek rather than a Roman god
Name comes from Latinized version of the Greek god of the sky- Ouranos

5. Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet in 1781
Uranus is an “Ice Giant” color is blue-green from frozen crystals of methane in clouds
Clouds also have layers of liquid water and ammonia ice
Has a rocky core surrounded by layers of ice

6. Facts:
Axis tilt is 98o
Hypothesized that a collision with an Earth-sized object knocked the tilt to its present position
Second least dense planet (behind Saturn)- density = 1.27 gm/mL

7. Mass 14 ½ x greater than Earth 1/20 the mass of Jupiter
100 lbs on Earth = 90 lbs on Uranus
Greater volume compared to its mass results in lower gravity than Earth

8. ATMOSPHERE 83 % H, 15 % He, and 2 % methane
Temperature = -355o F in atmosphere
8,500o F in rocky core (compared to 42,000o F for Jupiter’s core)
Poles receive more sunlight than equator
Winds of about 450 mph

9. SATELLITES 27 known satellites
All are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope

10. SATELLITES
Miranda (second from Uranus above) has “ovoids”, features which resemble a racetrack with crisscrossing ridges

11. RINGS More than 10 Range from 3 to 60 miles wide
No more than 33 ft thick

12. EXPLORATION Voyager 2 in 1985 and 1986 Podcast on Uranus:
Short video on Uranus: