William Herschal discovered Uranus in 1781. William was a musician that found he loved space. He built a telescope and found Uranus. At first, he thought it was a comet he discovered, but later on found out it was a planet. He had discovered the seventh planet.
The temperature on Uranus is usually -357 degrees F. sometimes it's a little hotter, or a little colder, but mostly its around there.
The length of 1 year (a full rotation around the sun) on Uranus is about 87 Earth years (30,681 days). A day on Uranus is about 17 hours and 8 minutes.
Uranus is about the size of 63 Earths. Just the core of Uranus is about the size of Earth. Uranus is all gases and elements, it has no solid surface.
Uranus has 15 moons. Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemora, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck, Miranda, Arial, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. Miranda, out of the 15 moons is the most special. "Miranda bears the scars of a very active and violent past," says Donna Walsh Shephered. She says this because Miranda has many canyons and is full of craters. Also, Miranda is closest moon to the rings of Uranus.
Uranus has 11 rings known so far. Scientists believe there are more yet to be discovered. The rings are mostly made of frozen gases, dirty ice boulders and dust. The largest ring is called the Epsilon ring. It is 60 miles wide. The other 10 rings are all about a half a mile wide, to 3 miles wide. The distance between the rings are about 200 miles, to 1,784 miles! It took quite a while to discover the 11 rings because hardly any light reflects on them from the sun. The rings appear to be very dark from the frozen dust particles. The rings are strangely longitude, not latitude like all the other planets rings. But really, Uranus is on its side. Some scientists think a very large comet hit Uranus and knocked it over. But no one really knows for sure why Uranus lays on its side.
It is your choice whether to believe if there is life on Uranus, but to tell the truth, it is more unlikely on Uranus than of the other planets because of how cold it is.
For more information visit the following sites:
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/uranus/uranus.html
