Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It is a gaseous, cyan-coloured ice giant. Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls “ice” or volatiles. The planet’s atmosphere has a complex layered cloud structure and has the lowest minimum temperature (49 K (−224 °C; −371 °F)) of all the Solar System’s planets. It has a marked axial tilt of 82.23° with a retrograde rotation period of 17 hours and 14 minutes. This means that in an 84-Earth-year orbital period around the Sun, its poles get around 42 years of continuous sunlight, followed by 42 years of continuous darkness. Like the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere, and many natural satellites. Further out are the larger five major moons of the planet: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. Orbiting at a much greater distance from Uranus are the ten known irregular moons. The planet’s magnetosphere is highly asymmetric and has many charged particles, which may be the cause of the darkening of its rings and moons. We celebrate the discovery of its rings 48 years ago (10th of March 1977) with an AI generated image of Uranus and its rings…

March 10
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