Facts about Uranus

Uranus is the seventh major planet in our solar system, and the third of four gas giant planets. It is 51,200 kilometers in diameter, just under four times the diameter of Earth.

• Like the other gas giant planets, Uranus consists mostly of gas. Its pale blue-green, cloudy atmosphere is made of 83 percent hydrogen, 15 percent helium, and small amounts of methane and other gases.
• Uranus gets its color because the methane in the atmosphere absorbs reddish light and reflects bluish-greenish light. Deep down below its atmosphere, a slushy mixture of ice, ammonia, and methane is thought to surround a rocky core.
• Although it orbits the Sun in a perfectly ordinary, near-circular ellipse every 84 Earth years, Uranus has an extremely odd rotation compared to the other major planets. It rotates on its side, almost like a bowling ball rolling down its lane, and its polar axis is parallel rather than perpendicular to its orbital plane.

This means that one end of Uranus faces the Sun for an entire half of its orbit, while the other end faces away during that time. So one “day” on Uranus is equal to 42 Earth years. Uranus is orbited by some 27 known moons and several thin rings.