Uranus, a greenish-blue planet

Uranus is a greenish-blue planet, twice as far from the Sun as its neighbour Saturn. Uranus wasn't discovered until 1781. Its discoveror, William Herschel, named it Georgium Sidus (the Georgian star) after the English king, George III.

Later its name was changed to Uranus, after an ancient Greek sky god, since all the other planets had been named after Roman and Greek gods.

Uranus facts

Uranus likes to be a bit different. It has a majestic blue/green haze due to its high levels of methane gas and rolls like a barrel rather than spinning like the Earth and the other planets in our Solar System. Uranus spins lying on its side (like a barrel), this is perhaps due to a large collision early in its formation.

Uranus was the first planet discovered by telescope. Since Uranus takes 84 Earth years to go around the sun, this means that each of its poles is in daylight for 42 years and in darkness for the next 42.

Uranus's atmosphere is mostly hydrogen but it also contains large amounts of a gas called methane which absorbs red light and scatters blue light so a blue-green methane haze hides the interior of the planet from view.

Uranus hides its interior but scientists say that under the hydrogen-methane atmosphere is a hot, slushy ocean of water, ammonia and methane thousands of miles deep wrapped around a rocky core.

Size: 4 times larger than Earth in diameter
Diameter: 32,193 miles (51,810 km)
Surface: Little is known
Atmosphere: Hydrogen, helium, and methane
Temperature: uniform temperature of 353 °F (214 °C)
Rotation of its axis: 17 hours
Rotation around the Sun: 30,685 days or 84 Earth years
Your weight: Not known
Distance from Earth: At the closest point, 1,607,000,000 miles

Mean Distance from Sun: 1,783.98 million miles (2,870 million km) -Internet