Uranus is which planet

Perihelion: The point in a planet's orbit closest to the Sun. Aphelion: The point in a planet's orbit furthest from the Sun. Sidereal Rotation: The time for a body to complete one rotation on its axis relative to the fixed stars such as our Sun. Earth's sidereal rotation is 23 hours, 57 minutes.

Length of Day: The average time for the Sun to move from the Noon position in the sky at a point on the equator back to the same position. Axis tilt: Imagining that a body's orbital plane is perfectly horizontal, the axis tilt is the amount of tilt of the body's equator relative to the body's orbital plane. Earth is tilted an average of Please Contact Us. Please try another search. Multiple locations were found. Please select one of the following:.

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Weather Map. From an average distance of 1. One astronomical unit abbreviated as AU , is the distance from the Sun to Earth. From this distance, it takes sunlight 2 hours and 40 minutes to travel from the Sun to Uranus. One day on Uranus takes about 17 hours the time it takes for Uranus to rotate or spin once.

And Uranus makes a complete orbit around the Sun a year in Uranian time in about 84 Earth years 30, Earth days. Uranus is the only planet whose equator is nearly at a right angle to its orbit, with a tilt of This unique tilt causes the most extreme seasons in the solar system.

For nearly a quarter of each Uranian year, the Sun shines directly over each pole, plunging the other half of the planet into a year-long, dark winter.

Uranus is also one of just two planets that rotate in the opposite direction than most of the planets Venus is the other one , from east to west. Uranus has 27 known moons. While most of the satellites orbiting other planets take their names from Greek or Roman mythology, Uranus' moons are unique in being named for characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.

All of Uranus' inner moons appear to be roughly half water ice and half rock. The composition of the outer moons remains unknown, but they are likely captured asteroids. Uranus has two sets of rings. The inner system of nine rings consists mostly of narrow, dark grey rings. There are two outer rings: the innermost one is reddish like dusty rings elsewhere in the solar system, and the outer ring is blue like Saturn's E ring. Some of the larger rings are surrounded by belts of fine dust.

Uranus took shape when the rest of the solar system formed about 4. 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. Uranus is one of two ice giants in the outer solar system the other is Neptune.

Near the core, it heats up to 9, degrees Fahrenheit 4, degrees Celsius. Uranus is slightly larger in diameter than its neighbor Neptune, yet smaller in mass. It is the second least dense planet; Saturn is the least dense of all. Uranus gets its blue-green color from methane gas in the atmosphere. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere and is reflected back out by Uranus' cloud tops. Methane gas absorbs the red portion of the light, resulting in a blue-green color.

Join us on a tour of storms. The next-generation radiometer is being developed to study the atmospheres of Uranus or Neptune, but could be used to study any atmosphere.

Meet the women leading two of humankind's two most distant space missions. Women at the Helm. Hubble uncovered a new dark storm on Neptune and provided a fresh look at a long-lived storm on Uranus. Hydrogen sulfide, the gas that gives rotten eggs their distinctive odor, has been verified as one of the key components of clouds at Uranus. We're talking about the ice giants. These are two enormous planets in our outer solar system: Uranus and Neptune. Ten things to know about Voyager 2 on the 40th anniversary of its launch.

In a flurry of new moon discoveries in late and early , it was announced by this author - and several other sources - that the planet Uranus had 21 moons. Stone, JPL's director since , is stepping down on May 1. A Conversation with Dr. Ed Stone.

The first unmanned space probe flyby in history of the planet Uranus by Voyager 2 on January 24, should have been an exciting one in the history of planetary exploration.

Fifteenth Anniversary of Voyager 2 Flyby of Uranus in What do you get if you mix together one part helium and five-and-a-half parts hydrogen, add a dash of methane, heat to 60 Kelvins degrees F and let sit for over four billion years? Recipe for Neptune Revealed by Scientists.