Uranus

 

Uranus is the 7th planet away from the sun. It’s a rather strange planet. To begin with, it is laying down! We say that because the north and south poles on all the other planets point perpendicular to the orbital path (well, that’s a mouthful…), the north and south poles of Uranus are in line with (parallel to), so the north pole is facing the sun.

How big is Uranus compared to Earth?

Uranus is huge! It’s about 31,000 miles (50,000 km) across — that’s nearly four times the size of Earth. You could line up four Earths across Uranus and still have room to spare!

How long does it take for Uranus to orbit the Sun?

A year on Uranus takes a whopping 84 Earth years! But the weirdest thing is its tilt. Uranus is tipped on its side at almost 98 degrees, like it’s rolling around the Sun instead of spinning like the other planets. Scientists think it may have been knocked over by a massive crash a long time ago!

What is the surface of Uranus like?

Uranus doesn’t have a solid surface to stand on. Deep inside, it’s thought to have a rocky core wrapped in icy, slushy layers of water and ammonia. Around that is a thick atmosphere made mostly of hydrogen and helium — basically, a giant ball of chilly gas and mystery.

A close-up view of an astronaut's bootprint in the lunar soil, photographed with a 70mm lunar surface camera during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity (EVA) on the moon. While astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, commander, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr., lunar module pilot, descended in the Lunar Module (LM) "Eagle" to explore the Sea of Tranquility region of the moon, astronaut Michael Collins, command module pilot, remained with the Command and Service Modules (CSM) "Columbia" in lunar orbit. Image Credit: NASA
Apollo Astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot, works at the Lunar Roving Vehicle during the first Apollo 15 lunar surface extravehicular activity (EVA) at the Hadley-Apennine landing site. The shadow of the Lunar Module "Falcon" is in the foreground. This view is looking northeast, with Mount Hadley in the background. This photograph was taken by astronaut David R. Scott, commander. Image Credit: NASA
NASA's Galileo spacecraft took this image of Earth's Moon on Dec. 7, 1992, on its way to explore the Jupiter system in 1995-97. The distinct bright ray crater at the bottom of the image is the Tycho impact basin. Image Credit: NASA

WOW! This planet is going to be really cool when we get there, but we haven’t gone there yet.

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