Uranus, seventh 

planet in distance from the Sun and the least

massive of the solar system’s four giant, or Jovian, planets, which also
include Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. At its brightest, Uranus is just
visible to the unaided eye as a blue-green point of light. It is
designated by the symbol ♅.

Two views of the southern hemisphere of Uranus, produced from images obtained by Voyager 2 on
Jan. 17, 1986. In colours visible to the unaided human eye, Uranus is a bland, nearly featureless
sphere (left). In a colour-enhanced view processed to bring out low-contrast details, Uranus shows
the banded cloud structure common to the four giant planets (right). From the polar perspective of
Voyager at the time, the bands appear concentric around the planet's rotational axis, which is
pointing nearly toward the Sun. Small ring-shaped features in the right image are artifacts arising
from dust in the spacecraft's camera.
Jet Propulsion Laboratory/National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Uranus is named for the personification of heaven and the son and
husband of Gaea in Greek mythology. It was discovered in 1781 with
the aid of a telescope, the first planet to be found that had not been
recognized in prehistoric times. Uranus actually had been seen
through the telescope several times over the previous century but
dismissed as another star. Its mean distance from the Sun is nearly 2.9
billion km (1.8 billion miles), more than 19 times as far as is Earth,
and it never approaches Earth more closely than about 2.7 billion km
(1.7 billion miles). Its relatively low density (only about 1.3 times that
of water) and large size (four times the radius of Earth) indicate that,
like the other giant planets, Uranus is composed primarily
of hydrogen, helium, water, and other volatile compounds; also like its
kin, Uranus has no solid surface. Methane in the
Uranian atmosphere absorbs the red wavelengths of sunlight, giving
the planet its blue-green colour.
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Planetary data for Uranus

*Time required for the planet to return to the same position in the sky relative to the Sun as seen from
Earth.

**Calculated for the altitude at which 1 bar of atmospheric pressure is exerted.

mean distance from Sun 2,870,658,000 km (19.2 AU)

eccentricity of orbit 0.0472

inclination of orbit to ecliptic 0.77°

Uranian year (sidereal period of revolution) 84.02 Earth years

visual magnitude at mean opposition 5.5

mean synodic period* 369.66 Earth days

mean orbital velocity 6.80 km/sec

equatorial radius** 25,559 km

polar radius** 24,973 km

mass 8.681 × 1025 kg

mean density 1.27 g/cm3

gravity** 887 cm/sec2

escape velocity** 21.3 km/sec

rotation period (magnetic field) 17 hr 14 min (retrograde)

inclination of equator to orbit 97.8°

magnetic field strength at equator 0.23 gauss

tilt angle of magnetic axis 58.6°

 Planetary data for Uranus

offset of magnetic axis 0.31 of Uranus's radius

number of known moons 27

planetary ring system 13 known rings

Hubble Space Telescope: Uranus

Image of Uranus captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, 1998. Visible are four of its major rings
and 10 of its satellites.
Erich Karkoschka, University of Arizona and NASA
Most of the planets rotate on an axis that is more or less perpendicular
to the plane of their respective orbits around the Sun. But Uranus’s
axis lies almost parallel to its orbital plane, which means that the
planet spins nearly on its side, its poles taking turns pointing toward
the Sun as the planet travels in its orbit. In addition, the axis of the
planet’s magnetic field is substantially tipped relative to the rotation
axis and offset from the planet’s centre. Uranus has more than two
dozen moons (natural satellites), five of which are relatively large, and
a system of narrow rings.
Uranus has been visited by a spacecraft only once—by the
U.S. Voyager 2 probe in 1986. Before then, astronomers had known
little about the planet, since its distance from Earth makes the study of
its visible surface difficult even with the most powerful telescopes
available. Earth-based attempts to measure a property as basic as the
planetary rotation period had produced widely differing values,
ranging from 24 to 13 hours, until Voyager 2 finally established a
17.24-hour rotation period for the Uranian interior. Since Voyager’s
encounter, advances in Earth-based observational technology have
added to knowledge of the Uranian system.
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Basic astronomical data

Witness the arrival of Voyager 2 at Uranus, its discoveries and the close images of
Miranda
Voyager 2 arriving at Uranus after a five-year journey from Saturn, Jan. 24, 1986.
NASA/JPL