Do you know how old Uranus is? This is an interesting question because we actually want to know how long ago the solar system was formed.
Age clue
We know that the planets formed about 4 to 5 billion years ago and are about the same age as the Sun. And also that they all have a common origin with the Sun. In addition to this information, scientists have other clues to help determine the age.
First key to the solution of age - the Sun. The sun was the main celestial body that formed from the nebula and formed the basis of the solar system.
Scientists have a theory that the Sun, gaining mass and starting a nuclear fusion reaction in the core, stimulated the formation of planets from gases and cosmic dust in the protosolar nebula.
So, knowing that the Sun and Earth have been around for 4.5 billion years, we can assume that the rest of the solar system is the same age.
Second key to the clue of age is its composition.
Uranus is one of the "ice giants" of the outer solar system. Unlike the inner planets, which are rocky, the outer planets are made up primarily of gases such as hydrogen or helium. And the largest is Jupiter, sometimes even called a failed star. In fact, they have gained enough mass to attract most of the remaining gases and dust from the protosolar nebula. However, they will never gain enough mass to start a nuclear fusion reaction.
Last big key, to the clue, is the number of its satellites.
The moons of Uranus, like others in the solar system, are fragments of the original material from which the planets formed.
In our case, the satellites are made up of the same materials as other moons in the solar system. Apparently, after formation, he began to gain mass due to gas, while the satellites remained practically unconfirmed changes.
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The planet, named after the Greek god of the sky, was discovered by renowned astronomer William Herschel in 1781. Too dim for ancient scientists to see with the naked eye, it was the first planet to be discovered with a telescope. As a result, at first the great astronomer and his contemporaries considered Uranus a star or a comet.
This enigmatic, beautiful, gaseous, blue-green ice giant, which became known as the seventh planet from the Sun, is so far from its star that it takes 84 Earth years to complete one full orbit around it.
The gas and ice giants in our solar system are so far from Earth that they are extremely difficult to observe and study. The Voyager mission was the sole source of much, if not all, of the real baseline data we have about the outer planets. Thus, these studies have played an important role in how we understand these planets today.
10. A planet with a mind of its own
Like Venus, Uranus rotates in an east-west direction, which is the complete opposite of the direction of rotation of the Earth and most other planets. A day on Uranus is quite short, lasting only 17 Earth hours and 14 Earth minutes.
The planet's axis of rotation is tilted at an angle almost parallel to its orbital plane, making Uranus look like it's spinning on its own side, like a piece of marble rolling across the floor. A "normal" planet is like a basketball spinning on your finger.
Planetary scientists speculate that this rotation anomaly could have resulted from a powerful collision between Uranus and another celestial body, such as an asteroid. Because of this extraordinary rotation, the seasons on Uranus last 21 years. This results in a major difference in the amount of sunlight the planet receives at different times and in different regions during a long year on Uranus.
9. Uranian ring system
In January 1986, the Voyager 2 space probe entered the upper clouds of Uranus to a depth of 81,500 km, while transmitting to Earth a huge amount of data about the ice giant, including features of its magnetic field, surface and atmosphere. This historic NASA flight also provided thousands of digital photographs of the planet, its moons and rings.
Yes, that's right, his rings. Like all giants in the solar system, Uranus has rings. Several scientific instruments on the probe focused on the ring system, revealing fine details of known rings and discovering two previously unknown rings for a total of 13.
The debris inside the rings ranges in size from particles the size of dust to solid objects the size of small boulders. There are two bright outer rings and 11 fainter inner ones. The inner rings of Uranus were first discovered in 1977, while the outer two were discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope between 2003 and 2005.
Nine of the 13 rings were discovered by accident in 1977, when scientists observed a distant star that passed behind the planet, allowing them to see its rings in all their glory. In fact, the rings of Uranus exist as two different "ring sets" or "ring systems", which is also quite unusual in our solar system.
8 Strange And Rampant Weather On Uranus
On planet Earth, we enjoy rain in the form of liquid water. Sometimes, it can rain strange red organisms or even fish. But for the most part, rain on Earth is harmless.
On Titan, methane falls to the surface of the planet. Venus receives acid rain that evaporates before it reaches the surface. But it's raining diamonds on Uranus. Hard diamonds.
Using the brightest X-ray source on the planet, scientists have finally obtained what they believe is solid evidence for this long-standing scientific claim. Published in Nature Astronomy in 2017, the work included studies at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory that combined a powerful optical laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), with an X-ray free electron laser , resulting in X-ray pulses with a duration of one million billionths of a second!
This enables ultra-fast and extremely accurate verification of processes down to the atomic level. Using this setup, the scientists recorded how tiny diamonds create shock waves through a special plastic. This allowed us to look at the processes occurring in the atmospheres of the planets, but on a much larger scale.
The plastic material, called polystyrene, is made up of carbon and hydrogen (which are two elements that are abundant on Uranus), so the main focus of the experiment was to induce shock waves into the material. The theory suggested the presence of methane, consisting of one carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms, which is found in the atmosphere and forms carbon chains that eventually turn into diamonds when temperature and pressure reach certain levels.
The diamonds are "pulled out" more than 8,000 kilometers above the planet's surface, and eventually transformed into a rain of diamonds. Dominik Kraus, lead author of the journal Nature Astronomy, said "When I saw the results of this latest experiment, it was one of the highlights of my scientific career." In the scientific world, these tiny diamonds are known as nanodiamonds.
It is believed that nanodiamonds are also raining on Neptune.
7. Uranus is the coldest place in the solar system...sometimes
With a minimum temperature of the planet's atmosphere reaching -224 degrees Celsius, Uranus has an average distance of 2.9 billion kilometers from the Sun and is sometimes the coldest place in the solar system.
On the other hand, the average distance of Neptune from the Sun is 4.5 billion kilometers, and therefore they are fighting for the title of the coldest planet. Which planet do you think is the coldest - Neptune, with an average temperature of -214 degrees Celsius, or Uranus?
It is logical to assume that this is Neptune, because it is the planet farthest from the Sun. But it's not. Uranus has surpassed Neptune in an attempt to become the coldest body in the solar system.
There are currently two theories about why Uranus is sometimes the coldest planet. First, it looks like Uranus was knocked over on its side by an early impact that could have caused heat to escape from the planet's core into space. According to the second theory, the living atmosphere of Uranus during the period of its equinox could lose heat.
6. Why is Uranus blue-green?
As one of two ice giants in the outer solar system (Neptune II), Uranus has an atmosphere very similar to that of its gaseous brother Jupiter - consisting mainly of hydrogen and helium with some methane and residual amounts of ammonia and water. It is the methane in the atmosphere that gives the planet its beautiful blue-green hue.
By absorbing the red part of the sunlight spectrum, methane provokes the blue-green color of the ice monster. Most of Uranus' mass—up to 80 percent if not more—is held tightly in a liquid core, which is made up primarily of frozen elements and compounds such as ammonia, water ice, and methane.
5 Uranus Could Be Hiding Two Moons
When Voyager 2 flew around Uranus in 1986, it discovered 10 new moons, bringing the total to 27. However, if the planetary scientists at the University of Idaho are right, during its historic probe mission missed a couple of moons.
When looking at the Voyager data, planetary scientists Rob Chancia and Matthew Hedman found that two rings surrounding the planet, called Alpha and Beta, have ripples. Previously, the appearance of similar wavy patterns was caused by the gravity of two passing moons, Ophelia (Ophelia) and Cordelia (Cordelia), as well as a couple of dozen spheres and balls approaching the ice giant.
It is believed that the rings around Uranus were formed by the gravity of these small bodies compressed around it, causing particles of cosmic dust and other debris to form the thin rings we see today. The latest discovery of such varieties of ripples suggests the existence of two unknown satellites.
If these moons exist, then according to Chanxia, they are very small, about 4.0-13.7 km in diameter. Therefore, the Voyager camera could not detect them, or they appeared in the images as background noise.
Mark Showalter, pride of the SETI project, said: “The new discoveries demonstrate that Uranus has a young and dynamic system of rings and moons. In other words, we are confident that Uranus will continue to surprise us.”
4. The mysterious magnetic field of Uranus
This is weird. The planet's magnetic poles don't even closely match its geographic poles. Uranus' magnetic field is shifted laterally by 59 degrees from the planet's axis of rotation and is shifted in such a way that it does not pass through the center of the planet.
In comparison, the Earth's magnetic field is tilted by only 11 degrees and is like a magnetic rod that has a north pole and a south pole, and the field itself is called a dipole. The magnetic field of Uranus is much more complicated. It has a dipole component and another part with four magnetic poles.
With all these different magnetic poles and the planet's large tilt, it's no surprise that the strength of the magnetic field varies greatly from place to place. For example, in the Southern Hemisphere, the magnetic field of Uranus is only one-third the same as the magnetic field of the Earth. However, in the northern hemisphere, the magnetic field of Uranus is almost four times greater than the magnetic field of our planet.
Scientists believe that the planet's magnetic field is amplifying a large, salty body of water on Uranus. They used to think that Uranus's 59-degree tilt and 98-degree tilt of its spin axis provide the planet with a powerful magnetosphere. But they turned out to be wrong.
The magnetosphere of Uranus is quite ordinary and is no different from the magnetosphere of other planets. Scientists are still trying to figure out why this is happening. They found that Uranus has auroras similar to the Northern and Southern Lights here on Earth.
3. NASA's Voyager 2 probe and Uranus
Launched on August 20, 1977, NASA's Voyager 2 space probe became the first and so far the only NASA spacecraft to fly around Uranus and send the first close-up photographs of a large blue sphere back to Earth.
During its long mission, Voyager 2 successfully completed a flyby of all four so-called "gas giants", starting with Jupiter in July 1979, then flying around Saturn in August 1981, Uranus in January 1986, and Neptune in August 1989.
Voyager 1 left our solar system and returned to interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2 is still in the heliosheath, the outer region of the Sun's globe (aka the heliosphere). Eventually, Voyager 2 will also fly into interstellar space.
2. Uranium stinks
A recent study shows that the clouds in Uranus' upper atmosphere are made up mostly of hydrogen sulfide, which is a chemical compound that smells like rotten eggs.
For a long time, scientists have been interested in the composition of these clouds, especially whether they are composed mainly of hydrogen sulfide ice or ammonia ice, as on Saturn and Jupiter.
Because Uranus is so far away, a detailed study of this ice giant is difficult at best. Moreover, given the data from the only flight of Voyager 2 in January 1986, these questions are difficult to answer.
The scientists used the Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer in Hawaii to study sunlight bouncing off the atmosphere just above the cloud tops on Uranus. They found traces of hydrogen sulfide. Leigh Fletcher, co-author of the study, said: "Only a small amount remains above the clouds in the form of saturated vapor, which is why it is so difficult to capture traces of ammonia and hydrogen sulfide above the cloud layers of Uranus. With Gemini's unique capabilities, we finally got lucky."
Scientists suggest that the clouds of Uranus and Neptune are very similar. They probably differ from the clouds of Saturn and Jupiter due to the fact that these planets are much farther from the Sun than the two gas giants. Patrick Irwin, lead author of the study, said: “If the unfortunate people ever descend through the clouds of Uranus, they will be met by a very unpleasant and foul-smelling environment.
1. Uranus is turned sideways due to many impacts.
Uranus is considered by most to be the "weirdo" in the solar system and is often referred to as the "tilted planet". The researchers say the recent discoveries shed light on the ice giant's ancient history, including the formation and evolution of all the giant planets in our solar system.
In 2011, then-leader of the study, Alessandro Morbidelli, said: “The standard theory of planetary formation suggests that Uranus, Neptune, and the cores of Jupiter and Saturn are formed by coalescence of small objects into a protoplanetary disk. They should not have suffered from powerful collisions.
He continued: "The fact that Uranus survived the collision at least twice suggests that the giant planets were formed in powerful collisions, so the standard theory should be reconsidered."
Uranus is really strange. Its axis of rotation is located at a strange angle of 98 degrees. A giant ball of icy gas spins on its side. The axial tilt of any other planet in the solar system doesn't even come close to 98 degrees.
For example, the Earth's axial tilt is 23 degrees, while the giant Jupiter is only 3 degrees tilted. For a long time, scientists believed that such a large angle of inclination was the result of a single strong blow. But after running a series of complex computer simulations, they may have come up with a better explanation.
They started the simulation using a model in which there was only one impact very early in the solar system. The analysis showed that in this case the skewed plane of the equator will also be reflected in the satellites, as a result of which they will also tilt. So far, the scientists were right, but they were in for a surprise.
In the "One Hit" model, the satellites will rotate in the opposite direction from where they are today. Not good. So the researchers changed the parameters of the program to simulate two-body impacts. They found that at least two smaller collisions account for the motion of the moons as they are today. Clearly, more research is needed to verify these results.
Researchers at the University of Manchester in the US have found that uranium can be used to make reactions that could solve today's energy and waste problems and, ironically, help develop next-generation drugs. The team, led by Professor Steve Lidl, head of Inorganic Chemistry in Manchester, detailed their breakthrough discovery in the journal Nature Communications .
The discovery itself was accidental and appeared as part of a research program that has been going on for more than 10 years. Previously, scientists believed that only transition metals were capable of such reactions. “Uranium is unique in that it sits at a crossroads in the periodic table and sometimes behaves like lanthanides (row 14) and sometimes like transition metals,” explains Lidl.
From the point of view of industrial chemistry, this is a great success: surprisingly, humanity has more uranium than many transition metals - their content in the rock is low, and the mining technology is very difficult. Lidl notes that literally hundreds of tons of depleted uranium are currently lying around in warehouses around the world - after all, this metal is a by-product in the production of enriched uranium. The scientist believes that good should not be wasted and that a fair amount of benefit can be derived from it.
Uranium in industry
For decades, mankind has been using uranium in nuclear power and as a filling for nuclear weapons. The abundance of depleted uranium has become a problem over time, as measures to dispose of waste and isolate dangerous radioactive materials are not always effective enough. Lidl's team says this problem will soon come to an end, as the researchers' discovery should level the amount of nuclear waste to an acceptable minimum.
“We are confident that understanding the principles of the correct use of radioactive metals will allow us to come up with other effective ways to dispose of nuclear waste, so that in the end it will no longer be a threat,” Steve explains in an interview with Futurism.
In an official press release from the University of Manchester, Liddle explained that their discovery could lead to the development of new medicines and biodegradable plastics, which would also help rid the Earth of waste. Currently, it is plastic that is one of the most serious elements of environmental pollution, since it decomposes very slowly in natural conditions. The total amount of plastic used in the world industry is estimated by experts at 297.5 million tons.
Uranium and materials of the future
Scientists note that, among other things, uranium also has interesting magnetic properties and can become a potential component for "materials of the future." In the event that uranium can indeed be used as a source of "peaceful" and safe energy, this will make industrial production cycles less wasteful and energy-intensive.
The seventh planet of the solar system - Uranus - was discovered only in 1781 and was named after the ancient Greek god who was the father of Kronos. This planet is classified as one of the gaseous giant planets, along with Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune.
William Herschel, who discovered Uranus, first mistook it for a comet. He watched the constellation of Taurus, and drew attention to the celestial body, which was in that place, which should have been empty, judging by the star maps of that time. The object was quite clear and moved slowly relative to the stars.
He told his fellow astronomers, mathematicians and other scientists about his observation. European astronomers began to study the object, its distance, mass, orbit and other characteristics. Russian scientist Andrey Leksel, determined the distance between the Sun and Uranus, it was as much as 18 AU. e. (2.8 billion km). So, after 2 months, after many hours of daily observations, scientists were convinced that Herschel had discovered not a comet, but a distant seventh planet. For his discovery, he was awarded a lifetime cash royalties of £200 and was awarded an order. This was the first planet discovered in modern times. Uranus has expanded the boundaries of the solar system in the eyes of man since Antiquity.
Structure of Uranus
As observations from satellites show, an iron-stony core with a temperature of about 7000 K is present on Uranus, but rivers and oceans cannot be observed. The absence of metallic hydrogen reduces the amount of heat generated by the planet by up to 30%, so Uranus receives 70% of its thermal energy from the Sun. Behind the core, a dense, very dense atmosphere immediately begins, with a thickness of about 8 thousand km. The chemical composition of the atmosphere of Uranus is as follows: 83% hydrogen (H2), 15% helium (He) and about 2% methane (CH4). Methane, as well as hydrogen, take an active part in the absorption of solar radiation, and, consequently, infrared and red spectra. This explains the blue-green color of the planet. Winds in the middle layers move at a speed of 250m/s.
Axis tilt of Uranus
Uranus is a unique planet in the solar system. The tilt of the axis of rotation is about 98 °, which means that the planet is practically littered on its side. For clarity: if all the planets are like a spinning top, then Uranus is more like a rolling bowling ball. Due to such an unusual situation, the change of day and night and the seasons on the planet proceed, to put it mildly, non-standard. It turns out that 42 years, one pole is in darkness, the Sun shines on the other, and then they change. Scientists explain such a strange position of the planet by a collision with another celestial body (possibly with another planet), which occurred millions of years ago.
Moons of Uranus
At the beginning of the third millennium, 27 satellites of the planet Uranus were discovered and explored. The main ones are the 5 largest satellites. The largest satellite - Titania - has a diameter of only 1570 km, which is very small compared to the satellites of other planets. Oberon is the second largest moon of Uranus. He and Titania were discovered by the same Herschel, who discovered the planet itself. Next come even smaller satellites: Umbriel, Ariel and Miranda. An interesting fact is that the names of all the satellites of Uranus were given in honor of the heroes of the immortal works of William Shakespeare.
Characteristics of Uranus
Mass: 8.69 * 1025 kg (14 times the Earth)
Diameter at equator: 51,118 km (4 times Earth's)
Pole diameter: 49946 km
Axis Tilt: 98°
Density: 1.27 g/cm³
Top layer temperature: approx. -220 °C
Period of revolution around the axis (day): 17 hours 15 minutes
Distance from the Sun (average): 19 AU e. or 2.87 billion km
Orbital period around the Sun (year): 84.5 years
Orbital speed: 6.8 km/s
Orbital eccentricity: e = 0.044
Orbital inclination to the ecliptic: i = 0.773°
Free fall acceleration: approx. 9 m/s²
Satellites: there are 27 pcs.
Unlike other giant planets, the axis of rotation of Uranus is almost in the plane of the orbit, i.e., the inclination of the equator to the orbit is 82 °. Uranus, as it were, "lies on its side", therefore the duration of the polar day and night in latitude, which are 42 years at the poles, at a latitude of 60 ° - 28 years, at a latitude of 30 ° - 14 years.
Uranus has a small solid iron-stone core, over which a dense powerful atmosphere at least 8000 km thick immediately begins. It consists of 83% hydrogen, 15% helium and 2% methane (Fig. 1).
General characteristics of the planet Uranus
Methane, acetylene and other hydrocarbons in the atmosphere of Uranus are found in much greater quantities than on Jupiter and Saturn. It is the methane haze that absorbs red rays well, which is why Uranus appears blue. Like other gas planets, it has cloud bands that move very quickly.
The average temperature on the planet's surface is 200°C. Winter and summer on Uranus are very different: the whole hemisphere hides from the Sun for several years in winter. In summer, it also does not get hot there, since Uranus receives 370 times less heat from the Sun than the Earth. Mid-latitude winds on Uranus will move the clouds in the same directions as on Earth. They blow at a speed of 40 to 160 m/s (on Earth - about 50 m/s).
Rice. 1. The composition of the atmosphere of Uranus
Uranus was discovered on March 13, 1791 by an English astronomer of German origin by William Ger walked(1738-1822) (Fig. 55). In 1787, he also discovered the first two satellites and gave them the names Oberon and Titania in honor of the king and queen of the fairies from W. Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. This marked the beginning of the tradition of naming new satellites after the characters in W. Shakespeare's plays: Desdemona, Cordelia, Ophelia, Juliet, Rosalind, Belinda, Caliban, etc. The largest of them is Titania, with a diameter of 1580 km. In total, Uranus has more than 20 moons.
In 1977, rings were discovered from the Earth near Uranus, then this discovery was confirmed by photographs from the Voyager 2 probe, which flew by on January 24, 1986 near Uranus.
