1. Goal: To understand how Uranus is different from Jupiter and Saturn. Objectives: 1)To learn about Uranus’s Seasons 2)To examine its rings 3) To learn about its atmosphere 4) To explore its moons 5) To compare its core to the cores of Jupiter and Saturn

2. Voyager 2 What difference do we notice between Uranus and Saturn? (question of day #1)

3. Keck Observatory image

5. rings Note quite as cool or as extensive as Saturn’s rings, but still pretty nice. Voyager 2 image

6. Uranus’s atmosphere Even though Uranus only has 15% Hydrogen overall, the atmosphere contains: Molecular hydrogen (H2) - 82.5% (3.3%) Helium (He) - 15.2% (3.3%) Methane (CH4) - 2.3% Hydrogen Deuteride (HD) - 148 Aerosols: Ammonia ice, water ice, ammonia hydrosulfide, methane ice(?)

7. Uranus IR Uranus unlike the other gas giants does not emit much more energy than it absorbs from the sun. So, there is not a huge energy source like for Jupiter (Hydrogen rain) or Saturn (Helium rain). However, there is a little, and cause by crystallizing the Carbon from Methane (what does this create?).

8. tempurature

9. http://hubblesite. org/newscenter/a rchive/releases/1 999/11/video/b/

10. Biggest moons

11. Titania (all images from Voyager 2) Uranus’s largest (~ 1600 km in diameter) Dirty snowball. Has a few valleys indicating upheavals.

12. Titania 400,000 km from Uranus – same as our moon. Tidal heating? If surface froze, with liquid underneath, then the interior froze, the interior would expand slightly. This would be enough to crack the surface. Half filled craters say the surface is somewhat “young”, but still hundreds of millions of years old.

13. Oberion 2 nd largest. Old cratered surface. Bump on the left is a 6 km tall mountain!

14. Ariel 2 nd closest of the large moons at 190,000 km (half of our moons distance from Earth). Has many connected valleys. Could they be caused by tidal heating? Although fairly young moon wise, they are still fairly old. Once probably warn, are the cracks cause by when it froze?

15. Umbriel Very dark. Twice as dark as Ariel. Old cratered surface. Probably dark for same reason that comets and Ganymede is dark. Umbriel and Ariel are about 1200 km in diameter.

16. Miranda – innermost moon (130,000 km) Smallest of large moons (470 km in diameter) What does this look like to you?

17. Other random Uranus stuff Uranus is about 4X the diameter of the earth and about 14 times as massive. The density is 30% greater than water. Has magnetic field Field corkscrews. Core is different than the cores of Saturn and Jupiter

18. Conclusion Uranus has strange seasons caused by it being topped over. Like Saturn, Uranus has some interesting rings, but they are much smaller in scale. Uranus has about 27 moons currently known. The largest 5 moons range from old surfaced to the interesting features and 10 mile high cliffs of Miranda.