Type of planet: gas giant
Diameter: 51,166 km
Mass: 8.683x10^25 kg
Distance from Sun: 2.869 billion km
Number of moons: 21 (Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, 1986U10, Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Caliban, Stephano, Sycorax, Prospero, Setebos)
Year: 84.07 yrs
Day:

Uranus (pronounced YOOR-a-nus) is the seventh planet from the sun. The name is from the earliest Supreme God of Roman mythology who personified the sky. He was the son and consort of Gaea (Earth) and father of Saturn. The discovery of Uranus in 1781 by German astronomer William Herschel, who lived in England, doubled the known size of the solar system. It was the first planet to be discovered in (relatively) modern times. The planet was called "the Georgium Sidus" (the Georgian Planet) or "Herschel" before Bode proposed the use of "Uranus," continuing the tradition of naming planets after mythological figures.

Uranus has eleven rings plus ring fragments anywhere from several meters to 2,500 kilometers across which consist of dust, rock and ice. The farthest ring reaches about 51,000 km out into space. Cordelia and Ophelia act as shepherd satellites to Uranus's outermost, or epsilon, ring (they orbit the planet within the epsilon ring) and may help keep the ring debris from drifting off into space.

Uranus's atmosphere is composed of about 83% hydrogen, 15% helium 2% methane and small amounts of hydrocarbons. It has a surface temperature of about -212 degrees Celsius. It is the most visually unexciting planet, with all surface features obscured under a deep layer of hydrogen. Its blue-green color is due to the presence of atmospheric methane. The core is surrounded by slushy ice, ammonia and methane. Unlike the other gas giants, Uranus does not radiate more heat than it absorbs from the sun. This could be due to its cold interior.

Uranus has an unusual tipped axis (the plane of the planet's equator is perpendicular to the plane of the other planet's orbits) and a large magnetic field. Scientist believe that Uranus rotates on its side due to some early collision with a large object. There is ongoing debate over which of Uranus' poles is the northern and which the southern pole. Uranus's axial inclination is either more than 90 degrees with a direct rotation or less than 90 degrees with a retrograde rotation. In 2007, the Sun will be positioned directly over Uranus's equator.

The magnetic field of Uranus is tilted almost 60 degrees with respect to the axis of rotation and is pronouncedly off-center. The cause of this is unknown, although it is probably due to motion under the planet surface.

Uranus's moons are named after characters from the writings of Shakespeare (yay!) and Pope instead of mythological figures. The outer four have elliptical orbits, while the others mostly have nearly circular orbits in the plane of Uranus's equator.