Uranus

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and is the third largest in the solar
system. It was discovered by William Herschel in 1781. It has an equatorial diameter
of 51,800 kilometers (32,190 miles) and orbits the Sun once every 84.01 Earth
years. It has a mean distance from the Sun of 2.87 billion kilometers (1.78 billion
miles). It rotates about its axis once every 17 hours 14 minutes. Uranus has at least
22 moons. The two largest moons, Titania and Oberon, were discovered by William
Herschel in 1787.

The atmosphere of Uranus is composed of 83% hydrogen, 15% helium, 2% methane

and small amounts of acetylene and other hydrocarbons. Methane in the upper
atmosphere absorbs red light, giving Uranus its blue-green color. The atmosphere is
arranged into clouds running at constant latitudes, similar to the orientation of the
more vivid latitudinal bands seen on Jupiter and Saturn. Winds at mid-latitudes on
Uranus blow in the direction of the planet's rotation. These winds blow at velocities
of 40 to 160 meters per second (90 to 360 miles per hour). Radio science
experiments found winds of about 100 meters per second blowing in the opposite
direction at the equator.

The surface of Uranus

Like the other gas giants, Uranus lacks a solid, well-defined surface. Instead, the
gas, liquid, and icy atmosphere extends to the planet's interior. Were you to land
and hover at the point where the atmosphere transitions to the interior, you
would experience less of a gravitational tug than you might feel on Earth. Gravity on
Uranus is only about 90 percent that of Earth; if you weigh a hundred pounds at
home, you would only weight 91 pounds on Uranus.

Uranus is the second least dense planet in the solar system, indicating that it is
made up mostly of ices. Unlike Jupiter and Saturn, which are composed
predominantly of hydrogen and helium, Uranus contains only a small portion of
these light elements. It also houses some rocky elements, equal to somewhere
between 0.5 to 1.5 times the mass of Earth. But most of the planet is made up of
ices, mostly water, methane, and ammonia. Ices dominate because the vast
distance to Uranus from the sun allows the planet to maintain frigid temperatures.

A frigid core

While most planets have rocky molten cores, the center of Uranus is thought to
contain icy materials. The liquid core makes up 80 percent of the mass of the
planet, mostly comprised of water, methane, and ammonia ice, though it only
extends to about 20 percent of the radius.
The internal heat of Uranus is lower than astronomers would expect. The planet's
core heats up to 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit (4,982 degrees Celsius). This seems hot,
but is in fact pretty cool when compared to the cores of other planets.

While other gas giants are powered by their cores, Uranus radiates almost no
excess heat into space. One reason for this could be due to an impact soon after the
planet's formation. The planet's current sideways rotation, spinning at a 90 degree
angle compared to the other planets in the solar system, already indicates a
collision. The impact could also have carved out a portion of the core, leaving it with
a lower temperature.

A strange magnetic field

Movement inside of the core tends to drive a planet's magnetic field, but the field
around Uranus is strange. Fairly weak, no indication of a field was recorded until
NASA's Voyager 2 arrived at the planet in 1986.

Generally, a magnetic field shrouds the planet from its poles. On Earth, for instance,
the geographic North Pole is very close to the magnetic North Pole. But Uranus,
discovered in 1781, is tipped on its side, so that one pole or the other is pointed
almost directly at the sun. The planet's magnetic field is offset from the poles by
almost 60 degrees, creating a magnetic field that tends to be stronger at one pole
than the other.

Although the magnetic field of Uranus is strange, it is not unique. Neptune, the
other ice giant, boasts a similar magnetic field, leading astronomers to conclude
that the core may not drive the fields.

Rocky rings

Like all gas giants, Uranus carries a set of rocky rings around its equator. The thin
strips, most only a few miles wide, are made up of tiny bits of rock and ice smaller
than a meter. The planet has at least 13 known rings in two systems.

Nola Taylor Redd, SPACE.com Contributor

Uranus distance from the Sun is 2.88 billion km. The exact number is
2,876,679,082 km. Want that number in miles? Uranus distance from the Sun is
1.79 billion miles.

This number is just an average, though. Uranus follows an elliptical orbit around the
Sun. At its closest point, called perihelion, Uranus gets to within 2.75 billion km of
the Sun. And then at its most distant point, called aphelion, Uranus gets to within 3
billion km from the Sun.

Astronomers use another term called astronomical units to measure distance

within the Solar System. 1 astronomical unit, or AU, is the average distance from
the Earth to the Sun about 150 million km. So in astronomical units, Uranus is an
average distance of 19.2 AU. Its perihelion is 18.4 AU, and its aphelion is 20.1 AU.

Definition of astronomical unit. For general reference, we can say that one
astronomical unit (AU) represents the mean distance between the Earth and our
sun. The AU is approximately 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles. It is
approximately 8 light-minutes.

More exactly, one astronomical unit (AU) = 149,597,871 kilometers = 92,955,807

miles.

Mean distance in AU from sun to each planet.

Mercury: 0.387 AU

Venus: 0.723 AU

Earth: 1.000 AU

Mars: 1.524 AU

Jupiter: 5.203 AU

Saturn: 9.529 AU

Uranus: 19.19 AU

Neptune: 30.06 AU

Amount of distance in a light-year, measured in AU

One light-year = 63,240 AU

Bottom line: Astronomers like to list the distances to objects within our solar system
(planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, spacecraft, etc.) in terms of the
astronomical unit, or AU. One astronomical unit is the approximate mean distance
between the Earth and sun. Its about 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles.

How far away is Uranus from the Sun?

Uranus is more than 19 times farther from the Sun than Earth is. Uranus is an
average distance of 1,783,939,400 miles or 2,870,972,200 kilometers from the Sun.
Because its orbit is elliptical, its distance from the Sun changes depending on where
it is in its orbit. The closest Uranus gets to the Sun is 1,699,800,000 miles or
2,735,560,000 kilometers. The farthest it gets from the Sun is 1,868,080,000 miles
or 3,006,390,000 kilometers.

How far is Uranus from the sun?

Uranus travels in an elliptical orbit around the sun once every 84 Earth years. At its
closest (perihelion), the distance to Uranus from the star is 1.7 billion miles (2.5
billion km); at its farthest (aphelion), 1.89 billion miles (3 billion km). On average,
the planet travels about 19 times as far from the sun as Earth does.

Because Uranus lies so far from the sun, it receives very little in terms of light and
warmth from the star. Its atmosphere is the coldest in the solar system, reaching
temperatures as low as minus 371 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 224 degrees Celsius).
Such frigid temperatures mean the planet is made up predominantly of ices rather
than gas.

A light year is the distance light travels in one year - it is equal to 9.46 x 1012 km.

To begin, you would need to know the distance from the Sun to the planets in
astronomical units. Here is that information...
Mercury = 0.387 AU

Venus = 0.723 AU

Earth = 1.000 AU

Mars = 1.524 AU

Jupiter = 5.203 AU

Saturn = 9.529 AU

Uranus = 19.19 AU

Neptune = 30.06 AU

Please note that these are the average distances from the Sun to the planets.

Now that we have this information, the nest step is to take each of these distances,
in astronomical units, and divide each one by 63239.8 astronomical units / light-
year and so this gives us...

Mercury = 0.387 AU / 63239.8 AU / LY = 6.11 x 10^ -6 LY

Venus = 0.723 AU / 63239.8 AU / LY = 1.14 x 10^ -5 LY

Earth = 1.000 AU / 63239.8 AU / LY = 1.581 x 10^ -5 LY

Mars = 1.524 AU / 63239.8 AU / LY = 2.410 x 10^ -5 LY

Jupiter = 5.203 AU / 63239.8 AU / LY = 8.227 x 10^ -5 LY

Saturn = 9.529 AU / 63239.8 AU / LY = 1.507 x 10^ -4 LY

Uranus = 19.19 AU / 63239.8 AU / LY = 3.034 x 10^ -4 LY

Neptune = 30.06 AU / 63239.8 AU / LY = 4.753 x 10^ -4 LY

As you can see, these are very small numbers and that is why it is unusual to list
the distance from the Sun to the planets in light-years.
MOONS

"Sweet Moon," William Shakespeare wrote in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "I
thank thee for thy sunny beams; I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright."
Centuries later, the moons of Uranus pay homage to the famous playwright.

While most of the satellites orbiting other planets take their names from Greek
mythology, Uranus' moons are unique in being named for Shakespearean
characters, along with a couple of the moons being named for characters from the
works of Alexander Pope.

Oberon and Titania are the largest Uranian moons, and were first to be discovered --
by William Herschel in 1787. William Lassell, who had been first to see a moon
orbiting Neptune, discovered the next two, Ariel and Umbriel. Nearly a century
passed before Gerard Kuiper found Miranda in 1948. And that was it until a NASA
robot made it to distant Uranus.

The Voyager 2 spacecraft visited the Uranian system in 1986 and tripled the
number of known moons. Voyager 2 found an additional 10, just 26-154 km (16-96
miles) in diameter: Juliet, Puck, Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Desdemona, Portia,
Rosalind, Cressida and Belinda.

Since then, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and improved ground-
based telescopes have raised the total to 27 known moons. Spotting the post-
Voyager moons is an impressive feat. They're tiny -- as little as 12-16 km (8-10
miles) across, and blacker than asphalt. And of course, they're about 2.9 billion km
(1.8 billion miles) away from the Sun.

All of Uranus's inner moons (those observed by Voyager 2) appear to be roughly half
water ice and half rock. The composition of the moons outside the orbit of Oberon
remains unknown, but they are likely captured asteroids.

Here's a sampling of some of the unique aspects of the moons:

-Miranda, the innermost and smallest of the five major satellites, has a surface
unlike any other moon that's been seen. It has giant fault canyons as much as 12
times as deep as the Grand Canyon, terraced layers and surfaces that appear very
old, and others that look much younger.

-Ariel has the brightest and possibly the youngest surface among all the moons of
Uranus. It has few large craters and many small ones, indicating that fairly recent
low-impact collisions wiped out the large craters that would have been left by much
earlier, bigger strikes. Intersecting valleys pitted with craters scars its surface.

-Umbriel is ancient, and the darkest of the five large moons. It has many old, large
craters and sports a mysterious bright ring on one side.

-Oberon, the outermost of the five major moons, is old, heavily cratered and shows
little signs of internal activity. Unidentified dark material appears on the floors of
many of its craters.

-Cordelia and Ophelia are shepherd moons that keep Uranus' thin, outermost
"epsilon" ring well defined.

Between them and Miranda is a swarm of eight small satellites unlike any other
system of planetary moons. This region is so crowded that astronomers don't yet
understand how the little moons have managed to avoid crashing into each other.
They may be shepherds for the planet's 10 narrow rings, and scientists think there
must be still more moons, interior to any known, to confine the edges of the inner
rings.

"Well shone, Moon," wrote Shakespeare, "truly, the moon shines with a good grace."

Uranus's Moons

1. Cordelia

2. Ophelia

3. Bianca
4. Cressida

5. Desdemona

6. Juliet

7. Portia

8. Rosalind

9. Mab

10. Belinda

11. Perdita

12. Puck

13. Cupid

14. Miranda

15. Francisco

16. Ariel

17. Umbriel

18. Titania

19. Oberon

20. Caliban

21. Stephano

22. Trinculo

23. Sycorax

24. Margaret

25. Prospero

26. Setebos

27. Ferdinand