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Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It is a gaseous cyan -coloured ice giant. Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls "ice" or volatiles.
Jul 7, 2023 · How did Uranus get its name? Uranus (officially pronounced yur-un-us ) was the god of the sky in ancient Greece , but actually was not the first choice for the seventh planet’s name.
Apr 21, 2024 · German astronomer Johann Elert Bode proposed the name Uranus in March 1782. He argued that the name followed the mythology of the other planet names, as Uranus was the father of Saturn, similar to Saturn being the father of Jupiter. Exactly why Bode proposed the Latinized name Uranus over the Greek name for the god of the sky (Ouranus) is
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The first recorded instance of Uranus being spotted in the night sky is believed to date back to the 2nd century BCE. At this time, Hipparchos – the Greek astronomer, mathematician and founder of trigonometry – apparently recorded the planet as a star in his star catalogue (completed in 129 BCE). This catalog was later incorporated into Ptolemy’s A...
Herschel’s first report on the object was recorded on April 26th, 1781. Initially, he described it as being a “Nebulous star or perhaps a comet”, but later settled on it being a comet since it appeared to have changed its position in the sky. When he presented his discovery to the Royal Society, he maintained this theory, but also likened it to a p...
As he lived in England, Herschel originally wanted to name Uranus after his patron, King George III. Specifically, he wanted to call itGeorgium Sidus(Latin for “George’s Star”), or the Georgian Planet. Although this was a popular name in Britain, the international astronomy community didn’t think much of it, and wanted to follow the historical prec...
While Uranus remains the widely-recognized name for the Solar System’s seventh planet (and third gas giant), other cultures have recognized it by various other names. For example in traditional Chinese astronomy, it is known as Tianwángxing, which means literally “Sky King Star”. The same name is recognized in the Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese as...
Uranus took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4.5 billion years ago – when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust in to become this ice giant. Like its neighbor Neptune, Uranus likely formed closer to the Sun and moved to the outer solar system about 4 billion years ago, where it is the seventh planet from the Sun.
Sep 23, 2024 · Uranus, seventh planet in distance from the Sun and the least massive of the solar system ’s four giant, or Jovian, planets, which also include Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. At its brightest, Uranus is just visible to the unaided eye as a blue-green point of light. It is designated by the symbol ♅.
Only one spacecraft has explored planet Uranus. In January 1986, Voyager 2 made a close approach to Uranus, snapping images of the planet and some its moons. A new mission to Uranus was one of the highest priority objectives outlined in the Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032.
