Read about the planet - Uranus. What are its dimensions - equatorial radius and mass, are there rings, distance from the Earth, as well as its satellites. Plus, watch the Video about the ice planet. Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Scientists attribute it to the giant planets, since it is the third in diameter and the fourth in mass. It is very far from our planet and, probably, not even a sent satellite will visit there soon.
Distance from Uranus to Earth
18 times greater than the distance from the Sun to the Earth - this is approximately 2721, 4 million km. The temperature is the lowest on this planet - up to -224 degrees below zero.
In the mythology of Ancient Greece, Uranus is an ancient deity of the Sky. It is the earliest supreme god who was the father of Saturn (Crohn), the Titans and the Cyclops (predecessors of the Olympian gods).
This planet is moving in an elliptical orbit. The half-axis of Uranus is 19, 182 times larger than that of the Earth, and is 2876 million km.
Around the Sun, the planet makes one revolution in more than 84, 00 Earth years. The time of the planet's own rotation is 17, 24 minutes hours. It has several features - the rotation of the axis is perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, and it rotates in the opposite direction to the direction of rotation around the Sun.
Equatorial radius of the planet
four times the earth's, and the mass is 14.5 times.
Uranus' atmosphere contains molecular hydrogen (83%), methane (2%) and helium (15%). Acetylene, methane and other hydrocarbons are found in much larger quantities than, for example, Saturn and Jupiter. That is why the planet appears blue, as the red rays are very well absorbed by the methane haze. The thickness of the atmosphere is very powerful - no less than 8500 km.
The theoretical model of the planet's structure is as follows: its surface layer has the form of a gas-liquid shell, under which an ice mantle is located (consists of ammonia and water ice), and under this layer is a core consisting of solid rocks (mainly stone and iron). Of the total mass of Uranus, the mass of the core and mantle is almost 90%. Like other planets, Uranus has many bands of clouds that move at high speed. But they are very hard to distinguish, and they can only be seen in images with maximum resolution.
Daylight illumination on the planet corresponds to the Earth's twilight after sunset. The planet has almost the same magnetic field as the Earth. But its configuration is very complex - scientists consider it to be a dipole if the axis of the dipole is moved by 1/3 of the radius from the center and tilted by 55 degrees to the axis of rotation.
Rings
Like other gas planets, Uranus has rings. Astronomers discovered them in 1977, when the planet was covering a star. It was observed that before covering, the star weakened its brightness 5 times for a short period of time. This led scientists to the idea of rings. Several years later, observations confirmed that the planet does indeed have rings. There are at least nine of them. Just like the rings of Saturn, the rings of Uranus contain a large number of particles, the size of which ranges from fine dust to stone and ice fragments of several tens of meters.
Moons of Uranus
The planet has a large number of satellites, approximately 27 pieces. The first five have the largest sizes and mass - Ariel, Miranda, Titania, Umbriel and Oberon. According to theoretical estimates, Titania and Oberon experience differentiation or redistribution in depth of the elements. As a result, a mantle and a silicate core of ice crust and ice were formed.
In past centuries, astronomers discovered all the major satellites of the planet. The satellite system is located in the equatorial plane of Uranus - it is perpendicular to the plane of its orbit.
