Uranus

Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun.  It is 4 times as large as Earth.  The proper way to pronounce the planets is "Yoor-A- Nus", anything else may sound less than polite!

 Uranus is 1,784,000,000 miles away from the sun.  It has a diameter of 31,760 miles.  It is barely visible to see with your naked eyes on some nights.  To really see it you need to use binoculars.  If you use a telescope it will look like a little disk.

Uranus is a gas planet made up mostly of rock and various ices.  It has an atmosphere that is about 83% hydrogen, 15% helium, and 2% methane.  It is the methane that makes the planet look blue-green.

Uranus looks like a top spinning on its side.  This is because its axis is tilted more than any other planet in our solar system.

Uranus has rings.  They are very dark.  They are made up of large particles from over 30 feet across down to the size of dust.  There are 11 known sets of rings.  All the rings are very faint.  The brightest set is called the Epsilon ring.

Each day on Uranus lasts 17.9 Earth hours. A year on Uranus lasts 84.07 Earth years.

Uranus was named after the Greek god of the Heavens.

Uranus has 21 known moons.  The last one was just recently discovered!  There are five large ones and the rest are small.  Titania is the largest moon, it is about half the size of our moon.  Mirianda is a moon that has a surface marked with deep grooves.  It looks like it has been shattered many times.

This is what the symbol for the planet Uranus looks like: