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Uranus Facts

Planet Profile

TypeIce Giant
Age4.503 billion years
Length of Year84.0205 Earth year
Satellites27, known
Radius15,759 mi
Mass8.681 × 1025 kg
Volume6.833×1013 km3
Orbit Speed6.80 km/s
Dist. from Sun3 billion km, ave

Below are some of the facts about Uranus:

  • Uranus is the 7th planet in the solar system. It is the only planet in the solar system which tilts too much to spin on its sides instead of the vertical axis. Its tilt is 98 degrees, and its axis almost points at the sun.
  • Due to the extreme tilted position of the planet, Uranus experiences very long and rough seasonal cycles. One year of Uranus is equal to 84 Earth years, and a quarter of this time which is almost equal to 20 years, one of the poles of the planet receives sunshine while the other pole goes through a cold, long and dark winter.
  • The planet is really dim, and is not highly visible, but it was the first planet to be detected with a telescope in 1781 by British Astronomer.
  • Uranus is called ice giant because of its water based composition, where methane, ammonia, and water are frozen together to form the main mass.
  • Uranus is the coldest planet of the solar system, and that’s because it has no internal heat to absorb sun’s heat and stay warm. Its average atmospheric temperature is -224 degrees celsius.
  • Due to the tilted spinning of the planet, its magnetic field is also highly tipped at almost 60 degrees. This has resulted in the magnetic field intensity increment of 10 times at the north pole compared to the south pole. Due to this, Aurora formations are much better triggered at the north pole.
  • The atmosphere of Uranus is composed of hydrogen at 82.5%, helium at 15.2%, and methane at 2.3%.
  • Uranus is 19.191 times far away from sun compared to Earth. This makes a distance of 1,783,939,400 miles.
  • Mass of Uranus is 15 times that of Earth.
  • One day of Uranus is completed in 17 hours 14 mins.
  • Storms in the Uranus get hidden by the upper layer of methane over the atmosphere which forms a haze. The storms formed in the clouds stays out of sight due to this.
  • The planet has two sets of rings which are thin and dark colored. The rings are composed of very small dust sized to big boulder sized particles. The inner set has 11 rings, and the outer set has 2 rings.
  • Uranus has many moons. Out of them the most prominent ones are Titania, Oberon, and Miranda, all named after characters of the dramas of William Shakespeare. These moons have a dark and frozen surface. Miranda is a mixture of rocks and ice, and has strange formations made from the ice like terraces and canyons and more.