My Epic Blog

Lucky Number Seven

     Hello, this is Jack at My Epic(er) Blog!

     Today I'm going to talk about . . . drumroll please . . . URANUS! This name may make you laugh, but this planet is seriously epic. It's pronounced YUR-uh-nus, by the way. I like this planet because it's the seventh planet from the sun. Here's a picture:

     Isn't it awesome?

     This epic planet was discovered by English astronomer William Herschel in 1781. He originally thought it was a comet or a star. It's named after Uranus, the Greek god of the sky. Here's a picture of a sculpture of the dude:

Most people associate planetary rings with the planet Saturn, but did you know that Uranus has rings, too? It's true. Uranus has two sets of rings: an inner system of eleven narrow, dark rings, and an outer system of two brightly-colored outer rings. Scientists have named each of these rings, but I don't want to bore you to death by listing them here. Here's a picture of the rings:

That's a cool picture. Here are some others:

      Uranus has lots of moons. Twenty-seven, to be exact. They're named after characters from things written by William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. But who cares about the names. Uranus's strangest looking moon is the one named Miranda. Miranda is unique because it has a surface that's very different from any others that scientists have seen. It has canyons 12 times deeper than the Grand Canyon. Parts of Miranda's surface look very old, and parts look very new.

     Here's a picture of the moon Miranda:

Do you think it's weird-looking? Here's a picture of Miranda, with a few other moons, surrounding Uranus:

Uranus is one of two ice giants in the solar system. (Here's a hint at the other one: it's Neptune). Eighty percent of its mass is contained in a liquid core consisting mostly of ice. It's atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane and very small amounts of water and ammonia. It's the methane in the atmosphere that gives Uranus its blue-green color.

Uranus doesn't even have a solid surface. It's atmosphere is actually its surface! If you wanted to land there, you couldn't: you'd have to hover. Crazy, huh?

Another thing that's different about Uranus is its rotation. Uranus rotates from east to west. Its rotation axis is tilted, so it looks like it's rotating on its side. Scientists think that maybe Uranus had a collision with another planet that caused it to tip sideways. Uranus says, "You should see what happened to the other planet."

I've already listed so many interesting facts about Uranus, but here are a few more:

1. One Uranus year is equal to 84 Earth years;

2. One day on Uranus takes about 17 hours;

3. Uranus cannot support life, as least as we know it;

4. Only one spacecraft, the Voyager 2, has ever visited Uranus;

5. The half of Uranus that does not have the sun shining on it is cold for 20 years!

That's the end of my epic blog. See you on the next planet (here's a hint: the next planet is Neptune).

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