Below are eleven facts about Uranus and its moons and a table of statistics

FACT ONE
After Saturn,a space-craft would have to travel 1,500,000,000 kilometres to reach Uranus. This means the planet is almost twice the distance from the Sun than Saturn is.

FACT TWO
Uranus orbits the Sun on its side. Its South Pole is pointed towards Earth. The angle of the tilt of the axis of Uranus is 97 degrees. This is probably due to an object the size of Earth smashing into Uranus during its formation billions of years ago.

FACT THREE
Voyager 2 was the first manmade object to reach Uranus. It had previously visited Jupiter and Saturn and had taken exciting close-up images of those two planets and their moons. However, when the first pictures of Uranus from Voyager 2 were received on Earth in January 1986, scientists were disappointed to see that it was a pale blue, featureless world. Six years of waiting and all they saw were images like the one on the left!

FACT FOUR
Uranus' pale blue colour is caused by the methane in its atmosphere which filters out red light.

FACT FIVE
If we were able to see Uranus' moons orbiting the planet, they would go over and under the planet like lights on a ferris wheel.

FACT SIX
Like the other Gas Giants (Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune), Uranus has rings of ice and small rock particles. However, these rings are so faint, they are only visible for special scientific equipment.

FACT SEVEN
Uranus has 27 moons (so far discovered) orbiting the planet. Ten of these were discovered in 1986 by the Voyager 2 mission.

FACT EIGHT
A day on Uranus is a few hours shorter than a day on Earth - the planet takes 17 hours to spin on its axis. However, a year on Uranus is much longer than a year on Earth. In fact, it takes 84 years on Earth for Uranus to complete one orbit around the Sun!

FACT NINE
Uranus was the first planet in the Solar System to be "discovered". The planets known of at the time of the discovery of Uranus were Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Ancient astronomers were able to see these objects without telescopes or binoculars and named them after their Gods. Uranus was discovered much later using scientific instruments, in 1781, but was still named after an ancient god (in mythology, Uranus was the ruler of the Gods)

FACT TEN
Because of Uranus' unique tilt, a night at one of its poles lasts for 21 Earth years, during which it will receive no light or heat at all from the Sun.

FACT ELEVEN
Almost all of the moons of Uranus are named after characters in plays written by Shakespeare. The moons of every other planet in the Solar System are named after characters in Greek and Roman mythology. The two moons of Uranus that are not named after Shakespearean characters (Arlel and Umbriel) are named after characters in a book called "The Rape of the Lock" written by Alexander Pope.  

VIEW FACTS ABOUT OTHER DESTINATIONS
The Sun - Mercury - Venus - Earth - The Moon - Mars - Jupiter - Saturn - Uranus - Neptune - Pluto and Dwarf Planets

PLANETARY STATISTICS

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