Uranus (Important Facts) {Part-20}

URANUS IS THE SEVENTH PLANET from the Sun and the third largest, with a diameter of about 51,000 kilometres. It is thought to consist of a dense mixture of different types of ice and gas around a solid core. Its atmosphere contains traces of methane, giving the planet a blue-green hue, and the temperature at the cloud tops is about -210^oC. Uranus is the most featureless planet to have been closely observed: only a few icy clouds of methane have been seen so far.

Uranus

Uranus is unique among the planets in that its axis of rotation lies close to its orbital plane. As a result of its strongly titled rotational axis, Uranus rolls on its side along its orbital path around the Sun, whereas other planets spin more or less upright. Uranus is encircled by main rings that consist of rocks interspersed with dust lanes and too distant outer rings made of dust. The rings contain some of the darkest matter in the Solar System and extremely narrow, making them difficult to detect: most of them are less than 10 kilometres wide, whereas most of Saturn's rings are thousands of thousands of kilometres in width.

Rings of Uranus

There are 27 known moon Uranian moons, all of which are icy and most of which are further out the rings. The 13 inner moons are small moons and dark, with diameters of than 160 kilometres, and the five major moons are between about 470 and 1,600 kilometres in diameter.The major moons have a wide variety of surface features. Miranda has the most varied surface, with cratered areas broken up by huge ridges and cliffs 20 kilometres high. Beyond these are nine much more distant moons with diameters less than 150 km.

5 major moons of Uranus

Composition of Uranus