Planet Research ProjectUranus

By Yu Xin

Symbol of Uranus

The name of Uranus

• Uranus is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus, the father of Cronus (Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter), which in Latin became "Ūranus". It is the only planet whose name is derived from a figure from Greek mythology rather than Roman mythology.

Uranus’ s Discovery

• Discovered by William Herschel in 3/13/1781• Observed many times before, but it was

generally mistaken for a star. • On March 17, he noted, "I looked for the

Comet or Nebulous Star and found that it is a Comet, for it has changed its place". When he presented his discovery to the Royal Society, he continued to assert that he had found a comet, but also implicitly compared it to a planet.

Uranus’ s Measurements

• Mass: 8.68×10²⁵ kg• Volume: 6.83344×10¹³ km³• Density: 1.27g/cm³• Surface Gravity: 0.886g or 8.87m/s²

Uranus’ s Distance

• 7th planet in Solar System• Distance from sun:– Perihelion(Closest): 2,734,998,229 km– Aphelion(Farthest): 3,006,318,143 km

• Distance from earth

Uranus’ s Orbit and Rotation

• Orbit period: 30,799.095 days (84.32years)• Sidereal rotation period: 17.23992 hours (7.18

earth days)

Uranus’ s Atmosphere

• Thick atmosphere• Hydrogen(H₂), Helium(He), Methane(CH₄)

Uranus’ s temperature

• 57K (-216°C -357°F)• Uranus has the coldest atmosphere in Solar

system.

Composition/Appearance

• Gas Giant

Uranus ’s Rings• Ring Name: Zeta (1986 U2R)

Distance*: 39,600 kmWidth: 3,500 (plus 5,000 km extension inwards) kmThickness: 0.1 kmAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: 6Distance*: 41,840 kmWidth: 1 km - 3 kmThickness: 0.1 kmAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: 5Distance*: 42,230 kmWidth: 2 km - 3 kmThickness: 0.1 kmMass: 0.1 kgAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: EtaDistance*: 47,190 kmWidth: 0 km - 2 kmThickness: 0.1 kmAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: GammaDistance*: 47,630 kmWidth: 1 km - 4 kmThickness: 0.1 kmAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: DeltaDistance*: 48,290 kmWidth: 3 km - 9 kmThickness: 0.1 kmAlbedo: 0.03

Uranus ’s Rings• Ring Name: 4

Distance*: 42,580 kmWidth: 2 km - 3 kmThickness: .1 kmMass: .1 kgAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: AlphaDistance*: 44,720 kmWidth: 7 km - 12 kmThickness: 0.1 kmAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: BetaDistance*: 45,670 kmWidth: 7 km - 12 kmThickness: 0.1 kmAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: Lambda (1986 U1R)Distance*: 50,024 kmWidth: 2 km - 3 kmThickness: 0.1 kmAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: EpsilonDistance*: 51,140 kmWidth: 20 km - 100 kmThickness: < 15 kmAlbedo: 0.03

• Ring Name: Nu (R/2003 U 2)Distance*: 67,300 kmWidth: 3,800 km

• Ring Name: Mu (R/2003 U 1)Distance*: 97,700 kmWidth: 17,000 km

Uranus ’s Rings

Uranus ’s Ring

• Uranus’ s Ring are mainly made of dust and ice.

Uranus ’s moon

• Scientist has discovered that Uranus has 27 moons now , but maybe there are more we didn’t discover.

Does Uranus have water in any form?

• We are not sure that is there any water on Uranus.

• Everything we know about Uranus comes from looking through a telescope. Only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has ever made a close flyby of the planet. Astronomers suspect there is lots of water on Uranus. Since they’ve never actually sampled the surface of the planet, how could they know?

Does Uranus have water in any form?

• It all comes down to density. The density of Uranus is the second least in the Solar System, after Saturn. In fact, it has a density that’s only a little higher than water. Since water is very common in the outer Solar System, astronomers suspect that the whole planet is made of mostly water. But it’s not like any water you’ve ever seen.

Does Uranus have water in any form?

• The temperature at the cloud tops of Uranus is 57 K (-357 F), and that temperature increases as you go down at a very predictable rate. It’s believed that the temperature at the center of Uranus is about 5,000 K. Liquid water can’t survive those kinds of temperatures without boiling away, unless you hold it under huge pressure. The water should be a vapor, but the heat and pressure turns it into a superheated liquid.

Uranus ‘s weather

• There are strong winds, and sometimes cirrus clouds made up of methane ice crystals are seen in the atmosphere.

What would happen if a human traveled to Uranus?

• If a person traveled to Uranus, it’s really hard for him to live.

• First, the temperature is extremely cold it has more than 300°F different between earth!

• And there are no solid surface on Uranus, that hard for landing.

• Also, there are no oxygen on Uranus ‘s atmosphere so that human cannot breath.

• So, human cannot or extremely hard to live on Uranus.

The special things about Uranus

• Uranus has the vertical angle between its orbit and rotation.

Citation

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus• http://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/welcome.htm• http

://www.universetoday.com/19309/water-on-uranus/

• http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/uranus