Uranus

Uranus, (YUR uh nuhs or yu RAY nuhs), is the seventh planet from the sun. Only Neptune and Pluto are farther away. Uranus is the farthest planet that can be seen without a telescope. Its average distance from the sun is about 1,784,860,000 miles (2,872,460,000 kilometers), a distance that takes light about 2 hours 40 minutes to travel.

Uranus is a giant ball of gas and liquid. Its diameter at the equator is 31,763 miles (51,118 kilometers), over four times that of Earth. The surface of Uranus consists of blue-green clouds made up of tiny crystals of methane. The crystals have frozen out of the planet's atmosphere. Far below the visible clouds are probably thicker cloud layers made up of liquid water and crystals of ammonia ice. Deeper still -- about 4,700 miles (7,500 kilometers) below the visible cloud tops -- may be an ocean of liquid water containing dissolved ammonia. At the very center of the planet may be a rocky core about the size of Earth. Scientists doubt Uranus has any form of life.

Orbit and rotation

Uranus travels around the sun in an elliptical (oval-shaped) orbit, which it completes in 30,685 Earth days, or just over 84 Earth years. As it orbits the sun, Uranus also rotates on its axis, an imaginary line through its center. The planet's interior (ocean and core) takes 17 hours 14 minutes to spin around once on its axis. However, much of the atmosphere rotates faster than that. The fastest winds on Uranus, measured about two-thirds of the way from the equator to the south pole, blow at about 450 miles per hour (720 kilometers per hour). Thus, this area toward the south pole makes one complete rotation every 14 hours.

Satellites

Uranus has 21 known satellites. Astronomers discovered the 5 largest satellites between 1787 and 1948. Photographs by Voyager 2 in 1985 and 1986 revealed 10 additional satellites. Astronomers later discovered more satellites by using Earth-based telescopes.

Miranda, the smallest of the five large satellites, has certain surface features that are unlike any other formation in the solar system. These are three oddly shaped regions called ovoids. Each ovoid is 120 to 190 miles (200 to 300 kilometers) across. The outer areas of each ovoid resemble a race track, with parallel ridges and canyons wrapped about the center. But in the center, ridges and canyons crisscross one another randomly.

Magnetic field

Uranus has a strong magnetic field. The axis of the field (an imaginary line connecting its north and south poles) is tilted 59 degrees from the planet's axis of rotation.

The magnetic field has trapped high-energy, electrically charged particles -- mostly electrons and protons -- in radiation belts around the planet. As these particles travel back and forth between the magnetic poles, they send out radio waves. Voyager 2 detected the waves, but they are so weak that they cannot be detected on Earth.