Special points of Uranus

Uranus has a self-rotating axis that is almost parallel to the orbital plane and moves very slowly around the Sun.

The image of Uranus was taken by the Keck telescope in July 2004.(Photo: Lawrence Sromovsky.)

Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun discovered by astronomer William Herschel, is rarely mentioned but carries strange features that no planet in the solar system has, according to How Stuff Works. . The orbital cycle of Uranus equals 84 years on Earth. The average distance from this planet to the Sun is approximately three billion kilometers.

Astronomers rely on data collected from the flight of the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986 to simulate the magnetosphere of the giant ice planet. The results show that from the star of Uranus, it is very strange. The magnetic field axis does not pass through the center of the planet but is tilted at an angle of 60 ° to the axis of rotation.

Uranus is named after the sky god of the ancient Greeks Uranus. This is the only planet named after a god in Greek mythology instead of Roman mythology.

The Earth's axis is only tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees, but Uranus's axis of rotation is tilted at a very large angle of 98 degrees, nearly parallel to the orbital plane. Therefore, the planet's north and south poles are almost at equatorial positions compared to other planets. The two polar regions receive more solar energy than the equator.

Scientists believe that Uranus' rotation axis is tilted so because during the formation of the solar system, an Earth-sized planet collided with Uranus, deflecting the axis of rotation of planet.

Uranus has the same chemical composition as Neptune but is different from the two larger giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn. For this reason, astronomers sometimes classify Uranus as a "giant ice planet".

Uranus's atmosphere is the coldest of the planets in the solar system, with a minimum temperature of -224 ° C. Low-level clouds in the planet's atmosphere contain mainly water, while methane (CH4) is predominantly in the upper cloud layer. The structure inside Uranus contains only one ice core and ice.