The third largest planet in our solar system is Uranus, which is the seventh in line from the Sun. Very little was known about the planet until a visit by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in January 1986, where it got within 50,600 miles of it. Now, information about its atmosphere, temperature, winds and rings has been collated.
A day on Uranus lasts 17 hours and 14 minutes whilst its year, one circulation around the Sun, takes a massive 84 years - the long duration due to Uranus being so far away from it. One puzzling thing about Uranus is that it appears to be tipped on its side. Unlike the other ringed planets, the rings go vertically rather than horizontally, and the poles are on the sides rather than at the top and bottom! This means the northern and southern polar regions are either exposed purely to sunlight, or purely to darkness.
Uranus' atmosphere is principally made up of hydrogen (83%) and helium (15%). The investigations by Voyager 2 discovered this, going against prior beliefs that its helium content would be a lot higher. Other gases detected in its atmosphere include methane, acetylene, and other hydrocarbons. Although scientists at first thought Uranus was a fairly bland looking planet, recent close-up studies show that it actually has a blue/green colour which is formed in its atmosphere as a result of the methane absorbing red light.
A high layer of haze has been detected around the pole which faces the Sun and that whole hemisphere has what is known as 'dayglow' which is where the planet radiates ultraviolet light. Little is known about the clouds around Uranus, although it is believed they are made up of methane crystals which condense as warm bubbles of the gas surge upwards from further within the atmosphere.
Temperatures on Uranus are, not surprisingly, very cold with an average of -213C. However what did surprise scientists was that even though Uranus' winters and summers last the equivalent of 21 Earth years, there is not a drastic temperature change between the lit and darkened sides of it. This is put down to the fact that Uranus is so far from the Sun's energy source that it doesn't get very much heating as a result.
There isn't a lot of information about the winds on Uranus, but those monitored travel at speeds of between 90 and 360 mph, which is generally faster than the average speed of a jet stream here on Earth.
One of the similarities between Uranus, Jupiter and Saturn, is that they all have a number of rings which circle them. In the case of Uranus, there are believed to be eleven rings around it, however they appear to be very unstable and quite "wobbly".
Related Articles:
- Mercury weather
- Venus weather
- Mars weather
- Saturn weather
- Uranus weather
- Neptune weather
- Pluto weather
