Planets of the Solar System: Uranus & Neptune
- Ishita Chintala
- Apr 4, 2022
- 4 min read
Uranus and Neptune are two icy worlds that are, in fact, the least explored planets of the Solar System, due to their large distance from us. They also happen to be the last two planets of the Solar System! Beyond Neptune are comets, dwarf planets, asteroids, and other celestial bodies. These two gas planets are also known as ‘ice giants’, namely because of their cold temperatures. Read on to learn more about these two relatively recent discovered planets!
Uranus
Uranus, named after the Greek god of the sky, is located 19.8 AU away from the Sun. Uranus is the 7th planet in our Solar System, and it was discovered in 1781 by Astronomer William Herschel. Uranus has a total of 27 moons, the five main moons being Miranda, Ariel, Titania, Umbriel, and Oberon. It takes about 84 Earth years for Uranus to make one revolution around the Sun, and one Uranian day is about 17 hours. Uranus is approximately four times
bigger than the Earth, and it hosts about 13 rings. The inner rings tend to be “narrow and dark” (NASA, 2021), while the outer rings are “brightly colored”(NASA, 2021). Uranus features a small, rocky core, and the rest of the planet is composed of icy material, like water, methane, and ammonia.
Its atmosphere is made of molecular hydrogen and atomic helium, and traces of helium.
Uranus is lonely in the sense that only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has ever done a flyby. It also travels around the Sun in a motion similar to a rolling ball, and it rotates around its axis from east to west like Venus. It has been confirmed that Uranus cannot support life, as of this blog post.
**Uranus is correctly pronounced as ‘YUH-ra-nus’, not ‘U-RA-nus’, although both ways are technically correct
Neptune
Neptune, interestingly enough, was the first planet to be discovered through mathematical calculations, instead of telescope observations, unlike most of the planets in our Solar System. Located 30.1 AU away from the Sun, Neptune, by far, is the farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System, as well as being the eighth and last planet in our Solar System. Neptune, named after the Roman god of the Sea, hosts 14 moons (which are named after Greek gods and nymphs), and just like Uranus, only had one spacecraft that achieved a flyby- Voyager 2. One Neptunian year is about 164.81 Earth years, and one Neptunian day is about 16 hours. Fun fact- Neptune last completed a single revolution around the Sun in 2011!
Neptune is about 4 times larger than Earth. Just like Uranus, Neptune has a small, rocky core, and the rest of the planet is mainly water, methane, and ammonia. Its atmosphere is composed of molecular hydrogen, atomic helium, and methane. Neptune has a total of 9 rings, with five of them being the main rings, and 4 being faint. Notably, Pluto is sometimes closer to the Sun than Neptune is due to the elliptical orbit of Pluto.
Voyager 2’s Discoveries
So, Voyager 2 was the first satellite to flyby Uranus and Neptune, but what exactly did it discover? The satellite discovered 10 new moons and two new rings at Uranus, and six moons, four rings, and an imitation of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot known as, “the Great Dark Spot” on Neptune. The Great Dark Spot is essentially a large storm on Neptune. It’s colored blue instead of red, because most of the planet itself is blue. Voyager 2 took about 4.5 years to reach Uranus. It even discovered Uranus’ wind speeds can be as high as 450 miles per hour (724 kilometers per hour), and a boiling ocean of water exists about 497 miles (800 kilometers) below the cloud surface! Unfortunately, the exciting news of Uranus’ discovery was disrupted with the Challenger explosion that same week, saddening many.
On Neptune, Voyager 2 discovered six moons, namely Proteus, Larissa, Despina, Galatea, Thalassa, and Naiad. Neptune’s wind speeds are higher than Uranus’ wind speeds, going as fast as 680 miles per hour (1100 kilometers per hour)! The plethora of methane on Neptune is what gives the planet its blue hue, just like how Mars is red due to the rust. In the planetary clouds, three major fields were discovered: the Lesser Dark Spot, the Great Dark Spot, and the Scooter. Five years after Voyager 2 found the Great Dark Spot, the Hubble Space Telescope was not able to take a picture, because the storm had disappeared. The flyby of Neptune technically ended the "Grand Tour" of the Solar System!
We hope you learned something new about Uranus and Neptune in today’s blog! Thank you for taking time to read through the end! Make sure to like, comment, and share, so more people can learn just as much as you did. To learn more about the other planets in our solar system, or about planets in general, check out the links below! As always, keep gazing skywards!
Mercury and Venus Blog: https://mid-night-eclipse.wixsite.com/astronomyblog/post/planets-of-the-solar-system-mercury-and-venus
Earth and Mars Blog: https://mid-night-eclipse.wixsite.com/astronomyblog/post/planets-of-the-solar-system-earth-and-mars
Jupiter and Saturn Blog: https://mid-night-eclipse.wixsite.com/astronomyblog/post/planets-of-the-solar-system-jupiter-saturn
Bibliography
Cambridge Dictionary. (2022, March 23). How to pronounce Uranus. How to say Uranus. Listen to the audio
pronunciation in the Cambridge English Dictionary. Learn more. Retrieved March 26, 2022, from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/uranus
NASA. (2021a, February 4). In Depth | Voyager 2 –. NASA Solar System Exploration. Retrieved March 29,
Zurich, E. (2021, April 1). Uranus and Neptune have wonky magnetic fields: Why? Futurity. Retrieved April 2,
2022, from https://www.futurity.org/neptune-and-uranus-magnetic-fields-ammonia-2541462-2/
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