The Solar System #8: Uranus
Did you know that three of the gas giants are named for one of the most dysfunctional family trees in mythology? No? Well they do and it gets… weird.
We’ll start with Jupiter, who was the Roman King of the gods. He’s often referred to as “Jupiter Optimus Maximus” because, as the largest planet in the solar system, he didn’t have a big enough ego already. He was the god of the sky and had all of the thunderbolt-y vindictiveness his Greek counterpart Zeus did.
But Jupiter wasn’t the creator of the gods. Nope that was his Dad Saturn. Roman mythology borrowed pretty heavily from Greek and Saturn’s counterpart was the delightful child-eating Titan Cronus. No really - he ate his children.
Both Saturn and Cronus had a big part to play in the eventual downfall of their father Uranus, the father of life itself with his wife Gaia. Saturn basically had a huge desire to rule all the things and killed his father, then ate all of his own children to ensure he’d never be overthrown. Jupiter escaped though and rest is “history”.
So Uranus is the all-powerful-until-he-was-smashed-by-his-own-son Sky Father. Cool.
The thing about Uranus the planet that makes me really happy though, is that it was almost called “George”.
George the Sky Father has a good ring to it don’t you think?
Uranus was the first planet discovered using a telescope. William Herschel found it in 1781 and legitimately wanted to call it “Georgium Sidus” after the King of England, George III. Fortunately, naming conventions prevailed and it became more commonly known by Uranus (*giggle*).
We really don’t know much about Uranus (*giggle*) because only one spacecraft has passed by it so far - Voyager 2 took a bunch of photos way back in 1986.
Uranus is special (*giggle*) for a few reasons. First it’s one of two blue planets. It’s upper atmosphere is filled with methane which absorbs the sun’s red light and reflects the blue. And second, it’s the only planet in the solar system that rotates on its side.
Uranus also has a really patchy magnetic field (not just north and south but north, NNW, NNNNE, random point here, random point there…). Some researchers think this is because it’s got a layer of “superionic” water (water that’s both a liquid and solid) that churns around, interfering with solarwinds. But the truth is, we don’t really know.
The planet is pretty bland - it’s mostly the one colour. That’s likely because it’s so cold that convection (currents in the gas due to temperature) doesn’t really happen as much as the other gas giants. Uranus has rings as well - only about 9 super narrow bands - we didn’t actually know they were there until Voyager 2 flew by.
Uranus has 27 moons orbiting it but we don’t really know much about them. Except that none of them are very large. They’re all probably SUPER COLD though.
Tomorrow: Neptune
Science Space is a not-for-profit organisation at the University of Wollongong. The work presented here was written by me as a part of a larger project spear-headed by my colleague Amanda Kruger.
