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Uranus: Location and Orbit
Facts in Brief
| Aphelion | 3 x 109 km |
| Perihelion | 2.74 x 109 km |
| Minimum Distance from Earth | 2.57 x 109 km |
| Rotational Period (Day) | 0.7179 Days (17.23 Hours) |
| Orbital Period (Year) | 84.01 Years* (30,685.4 Days) * The approximation of 365.256 days per year is used. |
| Orbital Inclination | 0.772o |
| Eccentricity | 0.0457 |
| Axial Tilt | 82o |
Relative Location
As a superior planet, Uranus’s orbit lies outside the Earth’s. It lies far outside, for the aquamarine planet never comes within 2.5 billon kilometers of us. This distance makes Uranus, the farthest planet that can be regularly seen from Earth without magnification, seem to be a star. Even its discoverer, Herschel, believed Uranus to be a comet when he first spotted it with his telescope. Uranus is nineteen times farther from the Sun than the Earth is.Seeing Uranus from Earth
On a clear night, Uranus can be seen, if only barely, by the naked eye. Through binoculars, Uranus appears a faint greenish star. Because it is extremely difficult to see Uranus, even with a very powerful telescope, anyone wishing to locate it should consult a star atlas or the month’s edition of Sky and Telescope, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Observer’s Handbook, or some other astronomical calendar.Orbit
Uranus has a fairly regular orbit, .05 from the circular. About 170 million kilometers separate its points farthest and nearest from the sun, respectively its perihelion and aphelion.A day on Uranus is more than two-thirds that of Earth, but its year is 84 times longer. That means nearly 43,000 days in a year—an impressive number, until one compares it with the Neptunian counterpart, which is more than double. One of the reasons why Uranus is so often yoked with Neptune in discussion is that Neptune was discovered due to the irregularity of Uranus’s orbit. For more than fifty years, hypotheses about Uranus’s failure to conform to its orbital tables (which worked for the other known planets) were tossed around by the scientific community. With the discovery of Neptune, however, the question was answered.