Uranus

CosMos Astronomy - Southern Hemisphere

"Come with thine unveiled worlds,

O truth of night,

Come with thy calm.

Adown the shallow day,

Whose splendours hid the vaster world away,

I wandered on this little plot of light,

A dreamer among dreamers.

Veiled or bright,

Whether the gold shower roofed me or the gray,

I strove and fretted at life's feverish play,

And dreamed until the dream seemed infinite."

Night - Archibald Lampman (Poems of Archibald Lampman 1900)

URANUS DATA:

Distance from Sun:

Aphelion 3,004,419,704

Perihelion 2,748,938,461 km

Equatorial Diameter:

51.100km

Mass:

(8.6810 ± 0.0013)×10²⁵ kg

(14.536 Earths)

Composition:

83±3% Hydrogen

15±3% Helium

2.3% Methane

0.009% Hydrogen deuteride

Ices: Ammonia, water, ammonium hydrosulfide, methane

Moons:

Orbital Period:

84.07yrs

Rotational Period:

12hrs 00mins

Apparent magnitude:

+5.90 to +5.32

Angular diameter:

3.3" to 4.1"

MAJOR MOONS (Diameter):

Miranda (472 km) discovered by G. Kuiper 1948.

Ariel (1,158 km) discovered by W. Lassell 1851.

Umbriel (1,169 km) discovered by W. Lassell 1851.

Titania (1,578 km) discovered by W. Herschel 1787.

Oberon (1,522 km) discovered by W. Herschel 1787.

Details of rise and set as well as relevant monthly information can be found on the Sky This Month page.

Videos:

The Sky at Night: Uranus - 44th Episode (December 1960) - Patrick Moore talks about Uranus and William Herschel. The Sky at Night is a monthly documentary television programme on astronomy produced by the BBC. The show has had the same permanent presenter, Sir Patrick Moore, from its first airing on 24 April 1957, making it the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history.