Uranus
was discovered in 1781.
The
planet's nuilding materials, temperature and number of moons are very similar
to Saturn and Jupiter. Uranus also has rings, though they're very
weak. The rings were discovered in 1977. They consist of ice.
The gravity
is almost the same as on earth. The planet is on it's side.
The
poles get more heat from the sun then the equator.
Uranus
is composed primarily of rock and several ices, with about 15% hydrogen
and a little helium. Uranus is in many ways similar to the cores Jupiter
and Saturn, except for the massive liquid metallic hydrogen envelope. It
seems that Uranus doesn't have a rocky core like Jupiter and Saturn, it's
material is more equally divided.
Like
all the other gas planets, Uranus has rings. Like Jupiter's, they
are very dark but like Saturn's composed of fairly large particles ranging
up to 10 meters in diameter in addition to fine dust. There are 11 known
rings, all very faint; the brightest is known as the Epsilon ring. The
Uranian rings were the first after Saturn's to be discovered. This was
of considerable importance since we now know that rings are a common feature
of planets, not a peculiarity of Saturn alone.
The rings of Uranus are 1986U2R,
6, 5, 4, Alpha, Beta, Eta, Gamma,
Delta, 1986U1R and Epsilon.
Uranus has 15 named moons and
5 recently discover, not yet named satellites. It thus has the most satellites
of the solar system.
The satellites of Uranus are
Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind,
Belinda, 1986U10, Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Caliban,
1999U1, Sycorax and 1999U2.
The planet
has only been visited by one spacecraft, Voyager 2.
The planets
diameter is 51,118 km, the orbit is 2,871 million km
and
the planets mass is 8.683e25 km
Pictures
of Uranus (Click to see the large picture):
This picture was taken by NASA