URANUS
The story
of the discovery of Uranus is interesting because it was the first
new planet to be found since ancient times. Sir William Hershel,
who lived in the English city of Bath, sighted the planet in 1781.
On following nights he saw that it moved across the background of
stars, and he thought it was a comet. After some months,
astronomers realised it was a planet. The news caused great
excitement.
Uranus is
very cold because of its great distance from the Sun. It is an
unusual planet in that its axis of rotation is tilted so much that
it revolved around the sun and the hottest parts of the planet are
the poles and not the equator.
Uranus has five known satellites and a system of
rings, first discovered in 1977. They are round the equator of the
planet, but because of the tilt of its axis they look very
different from the rings of Saturn. Its atmosphere is mostly
hydrogen and methane.
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Linux Space Programs
Astronomy Clubs
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