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The Odd Planet

Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun at 19.8 AU (astronomical units) away. This planet gets its namesake from the Greek god of the sky. Just like the other giants Uranus has many moons, 27. Uranus takes 84 Earth years to rotate around the sun. 

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Uranus Facts

  • A day on Uranus is about 17 hours while a year is 84 Earth years

  • Uranus is about 4 times the diameter of Earth 

  • Uranus is an ice giant meaning that most of its mass is a hot, dense fluid of "icy" materials (water, methane and ammonia) above a small rocky core.

  • Uranus' 27 moons are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope

  • Uranus has 13 known rings 

    • The inner rings are dark and narrow while the outer rings are brightly colored ​

  • Uranus can not support life as we know it

  • Like Venus, Uranus rotates east to west. But Uranus is unique in that it rotates on its side with a 97.77 degree tilt on its axis

    • Uranus is the only planet in our solar system to have this severe of a tilt​

  • The severe tilt was possibly caused by an Earth size object colliding with the planet long ago

  • Because of its tilt Uranus has the most severe seasons in the solar system with a quarter of a Uranian year the Sun shines directly over each pole, plunging the other half of the planet into a 21-year-long, dark winter.

  • The only spacecraft to fly by Uranus is Voyager 2 with no satellite studying it in depth

  • Uranus' atmosphere is made up of mostly molecular hydrogen and atomic helium with a little bit of methane

  • Uranus most likely developed closer to the sun but around 4 billion years ago it moved to the outer solar system to its current location

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