Uranus
Seventh planet out from the Sun, and
third largest plant in the Solar System.
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Uranus
- the gas plant, Uranus orbits keeping it 1,794 million miles away on average and takes 84 years to complete.
- Uranus has a spin-axis tilt of 98º from its orbital normal. (diagram)
- this tilt may be the result of a collision with unknown, possibly with a meteor or another planet many many years ago.
- the gas plant, Uranus spins around every 17.24 hours.
- so that Uranus’ poles alternative between 42 years of sunlight in the summer and 42 years of darkness in winter; in autumn, the Sun rises and sets every nine hours.
- Uranus’ moons – more than 20 moons – all named after characters from Shakespeare’s plays.
- there are five large moons – Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon and Miranda.
- other ten moons were discovered by the Space-Probe, Voyager 2 in 1986 and several more have been found since.
- over 1,700 million miles away as Uranus is so far away from the Sun – very cold surface temperature dropping to -210ºC.
- sunlight takes just eight minutes to reach Earth, but two & half hours to reach Uranus.
- Uranus’ icy atmosphere is made of hydrogen and helium; Green-blue methane clouds surround the planet, and winds circulate the planet at more than 375 mph – six times as fast as Earth’s hurricanes.
- inside Uranus is an icy mixture of water, ammonia and methane, and a  small rocky core.
- Uranus is only faintly visible from Earth. – looks like a very faint star with a naked-eye in the dark sites.
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Does Uranus have rings?
Yes, Uranus have some rings.
- Uranus has 9 brighter rings as well as several fainter rings.
- some of the larger rings are surrounded by belts of fine dust.
- the outermost ring is made up of ice boulders several feet across.
- the other rings are made up mainly of icy chunks darkened by rocks.
- the rings are thin, narrow, and dark compared to the rings of other planets.
- they are actually so dark that they reflect about as much light as charcoal.
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