Who discovered uranium. Uranus - planet of the solar system
There are true ice giants on the outskirts of our solar system. This is the name of the coldest planet Uranus. It consists of different gases and ices. And the temperature there is kept around -220 degrees. And strong winds are constantly blowing. A ray of the sun reaches this planet at the speed of light in only 2-3 hours. That's the weather!
Uranus has long been mistaken for a distant star due to its dim light and slow movement. It makes a complete revolution around its axis in 84 Earth years. Uranus is an icy giant planet... He is larger than Earth in 4 times and heavier 14... At the center of the planet is a relatively small rocky core. And most of it is the ice shell - the mantle. However, the ice there is not at all the same as we are used to seeing. It looks like a dense, viscous liquid. And if you want to walk in Uranus, you will fail. There is no hard shell, and after taking a step, you will fall into a huge ice sea. And in general it is very difficult to determine where the clouds end on this planet and the surface begins. Even scientists for a long time could not agree on what should be considered the atmosphere and what the planet itself.
Uranus turns around its axis for 17 hours ... However, like on other giant planets, the strongest winds blow here, reaching speeds 240 meters per second... Therefore, some parts of the atmosphere overtake the planet and make a revolution around the planet in just 14 hours... But by the standards of the giant planets, this is a very calm weather. For example, the winds on Neptune can overcome 2000 meters per second.
Winter on Uranus lasts almost 42 years and all this time the Sun does not rise above the horizon. That is, complete darkness reigns. This is due to the fact that Uranus does not rotate like other planets. Its axis is tilted so strongly that it "lies" on its side. While other planets can be compared to spinning tops, Uranus is more like a rolling ball. Scientists suggest that a long time ago Uranus collided with a small planet that "dropped" it. And she herself became one of 13 rings of Uranus.
Uranus has the same cold 27 satellites. Some of the largest - Ariel and Titania half are composed of ice, including water. And the surface of the satellites is covered with frost. And on the mysterious dark moon Umbriel, you can see light matter at the bottom of the craters. It is believed to be pure ice, of which the core may be composed.
Still planet uranus remains a little studied planet. Only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, approached this planet in 1986. And I could only study the south pole of Uranus. The rest of the scientists counted and thought out themselves. However, it is not known how many more secrets the huge ice kingdom holds in itself.
The planet Uranus, interesting facts about the existence of which were first discovered in 1781 by the English scientist W. Herschel, is still being studied today. For several days, the astronomer kept under observation a luminous body, which had not previously been noticed in the starry sky. In the course of calculations and reasoning, he finally came to the conclusion: an unidentified object is a new planet. The community of astronomers suggested that Herschel give the planet his name. But he modestly refused and offered to name his brainchild in honor of King George III of England - the planet George. This idea was not accepted by society, and was called Uranus.
It is noteworthy that before the official discovery, scientists have repeatedly noted the location of this planet in the galaxy. But it was mistaken for a star, then for a comet, or even registered as a star in the constellation Taurus.
Green star in the universe
Uranus is the only planet named after the ancient Greek god who personified heaven (usually used in Roman mythology). Uranus is in 7th place in the solar system with a distance of 2.9 billion km from the star. Contains large amounts of methane in the clouds, which gives the planet a beautiful blue-green color.
In total darkness, 27 satellites hover with Uranus. All of them were named after the heroes of the works of W. Shakespeare and A. Pope. Among all the satellites, the two largest are distinguished:
- Oberon... The satellite's circumference is 1520 km in diameter. It is located at a distance of about 582.6 thousand km from Uranus. One orbit around its planet takes 13 days, always turned to it with one side. The temperature of the ice giant does not exceed - 200˚С.
- Titania... The diameter of this satellite is 1580 km. It is separated from Uranus by 436 thousand km. It turns around its planet in 9 days. Titania is as cold as Oberon and has a temperature of - 200 ° C.
- The most incredible body that orbits Uranus - Miranda... With a diameter of 400 km, it has mountains up to 5 km in height and the same depth of the gorge. In the region of the satellite's south pole, there is a unique depression 15 km away.
Uranus is the third largest planet. Studies of its characteristics are carried out using the Voyager-2 spacecraft. The study of the parameters allows you to discover interesting facts about the planet Urani, to learn a lot about this celestial body:
The ring system of the planet deserves special attention. It has a complex structure, consisting of a set of inner and outer ring groups. In total, Uranus has 13 of them. They do not differ in particular brightness and have a rather gloomy appearance. It is believed that the rings are the remains of a former satellite of Uranus. After being destroyed in a collision with the planet, the particles of debris and dust remained in orbit, taking the form of circles. Given the age of the rings, it can be assumed that the disaster happened relatively recently.
The study of the physical and chemical characteristics, rings and moons of Uranus is a lengthy process. Astronomers have managed to accumulate a small amount of information about a cosmic body. Despite the fact that the planet Uranus is poorly understood, collected about it, allow you to discover new in the structure of the solar system.
Uranus is the seventh planet in the solar system and the third gas giant. The planet is the third largest and fourth in mass, and it was named after the father of the Roman god Saturn.
Exactly Uranus was honored to be the first planet discovered in modern history. However, in reality, his initial discovery as a planet did not actually take place. In 1781, the astronomer William Herschel while observing the stars in the constellation Gemini, he noticed some disc-shaped object, which he initially recorded as comets, and reported this to the Royal Scientific Society of England. However, later Herschel himself was puzzled by the fact that the object's orbit turned out to be almost circular, and not elliptical, as is the case with comets. It was only when this observation was confirmed by other astronomers that Herschel came to the conclusion that he actually discovered a planet, not a comet, and the discovery finally gained widespread acceptance.
After confirming the data that the discovered object is a planet, Herschel received the extraordinary privilege of giving it his name. Without hesitation, the astronomer chose the name of King George III of England and named the planet Georgium Sidus, which means "George's Star". However, the name never received scientific recognition and scientists, for the most part, came to the conclusion that it is better to adhere to a certain tradition in the names of the planets of the solar system, namely, to name them after the ancient Roman gods. This is how Uranus got its modern name.
Currently, the only planetary mission that has managed to collect information about Uranus is Voyager 2.
This meeting, which took place in 1986, allowed scientists to obtain a large amount of data about the planet and make many discoveries. The spacecraft transmitted thousands of photographs of Uranus, its moons and rings. Despite the fact that many photographs of the planet showed almost nothing other than the blue-green color that could be observed from ground-based telescopes, other images showed the presence of ten previously unknown satellites and two new rings. No new missions to Uranus are planned for the near future.
Because of the dark blue color of Uranus, the atmospheric model of the planet turned out to be much more difficult to compile than models of the same or even. Fortunately, images from the Hubble Space Telescope have provided a broader view. More modern visualization technologies of the telescope made it possible to obtain much more detailed images than those of Voyager 2. So thanks to the Hubble photographs it was possible to find out that latitudinal bands exist on Uranus, as well as on other gas giants. In addition, the speed of winds on the planet can reach over 576 km / h.
It is believed that the reason for the appearance of a uniform atmosphere is the composition of its uppermost layer. The visible cloud layers are composed primarily of methane, which absorbs these observed wavelengths corresponding to red. Thus, the reflected waves are represented in the form of blue and green.
Beneath this outer layer of methane, the atmosphere is composed of approximately 83% hydrogen (H2) and 15% helium, with a certain amount of methane and acetylene present. This composition is similar to that of other gas giants in the solar system. However, the atmosphere of Uranus is sharply different in another respect. While the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn are mostly gaseous, Uranus' atmospheres contain much more ice. Extremely low surface temperatures are evidence of this. Considering the fact that the temperature of the atmosphere of Uranus reaches -224 ° C, it can be called the coldest atmosphere in the solar system. In addition, the available data indicate that this extremely low temperature is present almost around the entire surface of Uranus, even on the side that is not illuminated by the Sun.
Uranus, according to planetary scientists, consists of two layers: the core and the mantle. Current models suggest that the core is mostly rock and ice and is about 55 times the mass. The planet's mantle weighs 8.01 x 10 to the power of 24 kg, or about 13.4 Earth masses. In addition, the mantle is composed of water, ammonia and other volatile elements. The main difference between the mantle of Uranus and Jupiter and Saturn is that it is icy, albeit not in the traditional sense of the word. The fact is that the ice is very hot and thick, and the mantle is 5.111 km thick.
What's most amazing about Uranus's composition and what sets it apart from other gas giants in our star system is that it does not emit more energy than it receives from the Sun. Considering the fact that even one that is very close in size to Uranus produces about 2.6 times more heat than it receives from the Sun, scientists today are very intrigued by such a weak power generated by Uranus. At the moment, there are two explanations for this phenomenon. The first indicates that Uranus was exposed to a volumetric space object in the past, which led to the loss of most of the planet's internal heat (received during formation) into outer space. The second theory claims that there is a certain barrier inside the planet that does not allow the planet's internal heat to escape to the surface.
Orbit and rotation of Uranus
The very discovery of Uranus allowed scientists to expand the radius of the known solar system almost twice. This means that the average orbit of Uranus is about 2.87 x 10 to the 9 km power. The reason for such a huge distance is the duration of the passage of solar radiation from the Sun to the planet. Sunlight takes about two hours and forty minutes to reach Uranus, nearly twenty times longer than it takes sunlight to reach Earth. The huge distance also affects the length of the year on Uranus, it lasts almost 84 Earth years.
The eccentricity of Uranus's orbit is 0.0473, which is only slightly less than that of Jupiter - 0.0484. This factor makes Uranus the fourth of all the planets of the solar system in terms of a circular orbit. The reason for such a small eccentricity of the orbit of Uranus is the difference between its perihelion 2.74 x 10 to the power of 9 km and the aphelion of 3.01 x 109 km is only 2.71 x 10 to the power of 8 km.
The most interesting moment in the rotation of Uranus is the position of the axis. The fact is that the axis of rotation for every planet, except Uranus, is approximately perpendicular to their orbital plane, however, the axis of Uranus is tilted by almost 98 °, which actually means that Uranus rotates on its side. The result of this position of the planet's axis is that the north pole of Uranus is on the Sun for half the planetary year, and the other half falls on the south pole of the planet. In other words, daytime in one hemisphere of Uranus lasts 42 Earth years, and nighttime, in the other hemisphere, the same. The reason why Uranus "turned on its side", scientists again call a collision with a huge cosmic body.
Considering the fact that the most popular of the rings in our solar system for a long time remained the rings of Saturn, the rings of Uranus could not be detected until 1977. However, the reason is not only this, there are two more reasons for such a late discovery: the distance of the planet from the Earth and the low reflectivity of the rings themselves. In 1986, the Voyager 2 spacecraft was able to determine the presence of two more rings on the planet, in addition to those known at the time. In 2005, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted two more. To date, planetary scientists know 13 rings of Uranus, the brightest of which is the Epsilon ring.
The rings of Uranus differ from the Saturnian ones in almost everything - from particle size to composition. First, the particles that make up Saturn's rings are small, a little more than a few meters in diameter, while Uranus's rings contain many bodies up to twenty meters in diameter. Second, the particles in Saturn's rings are mostly made of ice. The rings of Uranus, however, are composed of both ice and considerable dust and debris.
William Herschel only discovered Uranus in 1781, as the planet was too dim to be noticed by representatives of ancient civilizations. Herschel himself initially believed that Uranus was a comet, but later revised his opinion and science confirmed the planetary status of the object. So Uranus became the first planet discovered in modern history. The original name proposed by Herschel was "George's Star" - in honor of King George III, but the scientific community did not accept it. The name "Uranus" was proposed by the astronomer Johann Bode, in honor of the ancient Roman god Uranus.
Uranus makes a revolution on its axis once every 17 hours and 14 minutes. Likewise, the planet rotates in a retrograde direction, opposite to the direction of the Earth and the other six planets.
It is believed that the unusual tilt of the axis of Uranus could cause a grand collision with another cosmic body. The theory is that the planet, which was supposedly the size of the Earth, collided sharply with Uranus, which shifted its axis by almost 90 degrees.
Wind speed on Uranus can reach up to 900 km per hour.
Uranus is about 14.5 times the mass of Earth, making it the lightest of the four gas giants in our solar system.
Uranus is often referred to as the "ice giant". Apart from hydrogen and helium in the upper layer (like other gas giants), Uranus also has an ice mantle that surrounds its iron core. The upper atmosphere, composed of ammonia and ice-cold methane crystals, gives Uranus its characteristic pale blue color.
Uranus is the second least dense planet in the solar system, after Saturn.
The planet Uranus owes its discovery to Herschel, who studied the firmament in a telescope he designed.
Prior to its discovery, the planet Uranus was repeatedly sighted and mistakenly assigned to the stars. Among the stationary celestial bodies, the English astronomer noticed one moving along a trajectory and differing from the others in color. So, at the end of the 18th century, a new planet was discovered. In the chosen name, the discoverer wanted to glorify King George III, but his idea was not successful. A few years later, the German Bonet, who continued to study the unknown body, proposed the name of the Greek god - Uranus, which was recognized by the public.
Location
Uranus managed to remain unnoticed for so long because of its exceptional distance from the star. The distance from the Sun to the distant giant is 2.8 billion km. This is the seventh planet in our system. Astronomers classify it as a gas giant. The colossal distance from the source of heat and energy made Uranus the coldest planet among all studied. On the surface of the giant, record low temperatures have been recorded, it drops to -220 degrees Celsius.
Features of the planet
Uranus is unique in its location, with its axis tilted at 98 degrees, which causes the original planet to orbit while lying on its side. In this position, the main flow of solar energy is directed to the area of \u200b\u200bthe poles, but, contrary to logical conclusions, the temperature at the equator has higher values. The direction of rotation of the ice giant is opposite to that of its orbital motion. Uranus makes one revolution in 84 Earth years, and a day passes in 17 hours, this period is calculated approximately due to the uneven movement of the gaseous surface.
Features of the structure and atmosphere
The mass of the celestial body is 8.68x10 in 25 kg, it is less than the weight of the gas giants located nearby. This is due to the planet's minimum density - 1.27 g / cm3, based on light components. Its structure includes a core of iron and stone; mantle - the ice body that makes up most of the giant, and the atmosphere. This model was developed theoretically, its basis was the study of the gravitational effect of Uranus on satellites. A spectacular blue glow to the planet is given by the presence of methane particles in the upper layers, its mass fraction is 2%. The basis of the gas envelope is hydrogen - 82% and helium - 15%. The remainder is divided into ammonia and acetylene. The mantle is not an ice shell in the physical sense - it is a modified mixture of water and ammonia. There is no solid surface on the planet, this level is calculated conventionally based on pressure indicators.
The lower atmosphere is dynamic and prone to hurricane winds. Above it is the tropopause with clouds of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Seasons on Uranus last for several years, during this period one hemisphere is devoid of sunlight. The planet's magnetic field is powerful and complex, its axis is offset from the axis of rotation by 60 degrees.
Rings of Uranus
The planet is surrounded by its own, consisting of particles of various diameters. Having a dark color, they do not stand out and are poorly visible. They were considered only in 1977. There are 13 rings - 11 internal and 2 external, with a colored spectrum.
Satellites
Uranus is not alone in space, its company is shared by 27 large and small satellites. Two of them were discovered in 1787 by William Herschel, 80 years later they discovered the next pair. The last of the five large satellites was spotted almost a century later. These space objects are in the shape of a ball, their bodies are made of ice and stone. Each of them has its own characteristics: - the closest moon to Uranus, - has a very dark surface, - the youngest and lightest, - cut with craters, traces of past volcanic activity. Similar in size and appearance to Oberon, these are the two largest moons. 22 objects were discovered later, with the help of powerful telescopes and apparatus "". For titles, it is customary to use the names of characters in the works of Shakespeare and Pope.
The main parameters of the planet
Weight: 86.832 x 10 * 24 kg
Volume: 6833 x 10 * 10 km3
Average radius: 25362 km
Average diameter: 50,724 km
Average density 1.270 g / cm 3
First space velocity: 21.3 km / s
Free fall acceleration: 8.87 m / s 2
Natural satellites: 27
The presence of rings - yes
Semi-major axis: 2872460000 km
Orbital period: 30685.4 days
Perihelion: 2,741,300,000 km
Aphelios: 3003.620,000 km
Average orbital speed: 6.81 km / s
Orbit inclination: 0.772 °
Orbital eccentricity: 0.0457
Sidereal period of rotation: 17.24 hours
Length of a Day: 17.24 hours
Axial tilt: 97.77 °
Opening date: 13 March 1781
Minimum distance from Earth: 2,581,900,000 km
Maximum distance from Earth: 3,157,300,000 km
Maximum apparent diameter from Earth: 4.1 arc seconds
Minimum apparent diameter from Earth: 3.3 arc seconds
Maximum magnitude: 5.32
This incredibly interesting planet got its name in honor of the father of the Roman god Saturn. It was Uranus that became the first planet to be discovered in modern history. However, at first this planet in 1781 was classified as a comet, and only later observations of astronomers proved that Uranus is a real planet. In our review, there are curious and interesting facts about the seventh planet from the Sun, on which summer lasts 42 years.
1. Seventh planet
Uranus is the seventh planet in terms of distance from the Sun, which is the third largest and fourth most massive in the solar system. It is invisible to the naked eye, which is why Uranus became the first planet discovered with a telescope.
2. Uranus discovered in 1781
Uranus was officially discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781. The name of the planet comes from the ancient Greek deity Uranus, whose sons were giants and titans.
3. Too, too faded ...
Uranus is too faded to be seen without special devices. At first, Herschel thought it was a comet, but after a few years it was confirmed that it was still a planet.
4. The planet lies "on its side"
The planet rotates in the opposite direction, opposite to Earth and most other planets. Since the axis of rotation of Uranus is located unusually (the planet lies "on its side" relative to the plane of rotation around the Sun), for almost a quarter of a year one of the poles of the planet is in complete darkness.
5. The smallest of the "giants"
Uranus is the smallest of the four "giants" (they also include Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune), but it is several times larger than Earth. The equatorial diameter of Uranus is 47,150 km, compared to the Earth's diameter of 12,760 km.
6. An atmosphere of hydrogen and helium
Like other gas giants, Uranus' atmosphere is composed of hydrogen and helium. Below is the ice mantle that surrounds the core of stone and ice (which is why Uranus is often called the “ice giant”). The clouds on Uranus are composed of water, ammonia and methane crystals, which gives the planet its pale blue color.
7. Uranus helped with Neptune
Since Uranus was first discovered, scientists have noticed that at certain points in its orbit, the planet is deflected further into space. In the nineteenth century, some astronomers suggested that this attraction was due to the gravity of another planet. By doing mathematical calculations based on observations of Uranus, two astronomers, Adams and Le Verrier, located another planet. It turned out to be Neptune, located at a distance of 10.9 astronomical units from Uranus.
8.19.2 astronomical units
Distances in the solar system are measured in astronomical units (AU). The distance of the Earth from the Sun was taken as one astronomical unit. Uranus is at a distance of 19.2 AU from the sun.
9. Inner heat of the planet
Another surprising fact about Uranus is that the planet's internal heat is less than that of other giant planets in the solar system. The reason for this is unknown.
10. Eternal haze of methane
Uranus' upper atmosphere is a perpetual haze of methane. She hides the storms that rage in the clouds.
11. Two external and eleven internal
Uranus has two sets of very thin rings of dark color. The particles that make up the rings are very small: from the size of a grain of sand to small pebbles. There are eleven inner rings and two outer rings, the first of which were discovered in 1977 when Uranus passed in front of the star and astronomers were able to observe the planet with the Hubble Telescope.
12. Titania, Oberon, Miranda, Ariel
Uranus has a total of twenty-seven moons, most of which were named after the characters in Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. The five main companions are called Titania, Oberon, Miranda, Ariel and Umbriel.
13. Ice canyons and terraces of Miranda
The most interesting satellite of Uranus is Miranda. It has ice canyons, terraces, and other strange looking surface areas.
14. The lowest temperature in the solar system
Uranus recorded the lowest temperature on the planets in the solar system - minus 224 ° C. Although such temperatures were not observed on Neptune, this planet is colder on average.
15. Period of revolution around the Sun
The year on Uranus (that is, the period of revolution around the Sun) lasts 84 Earth years. For about 42 years, each of its poles is in direct sunlight, and the rest of the time is in complete darkness.
For all who are interested in an extraterrestrial theme, we have collected.
