Space exploration: Uranus
Introduction
The third largest planet in our solar system was only discovered with a telescope in 1781. His rings were not found until 1977 with the help of a space probe. Uranus was the first planet discovered with the help of the telescope. Until then, only the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, known since ancient times, belonged to the repertoire of ‘wandering stars’ in heaven.
The German Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, who was an amateur astronomer at that time, met the new planet in Bath, England, when he was exploring the sky with a six -inch telescope. Uranus, with a maximum brightness of 5.7, can also be seen with the naked eye in optimal conditions, but it was not recognized as a planet before Herschel.
Developing
In the telescope, the celestial body, which bears the name of the Greek god Uranus, appears as a small greenish blue album without special characteristics. Occasionally, visual observers reported bands and visible areas., But these could only be tested clearly in the twentieth century. With a diameter of around 51.000 kilometers, Uranus is the third largest planet in the solar system: the size of the earth is approximately four times and 14.5 times the mass.
Uranus moons
Only six years after the discovery of the planet, Wilhelm Herschel met the two biggest moons, Titania and Oberon, who, with three exceptions, bore the name of characters from the ‘Summer Dream’ of William Shakespeare. Titania has a diameter of 1580 kilometers, oberon 1520 kilometers. A total of five Uranus moons were known until the American spatial probe Voyager 2 was flying in 1986. The number has now increased to 27.
Uranus rings
A sensation was the detection of a rings system around Uranus in 1977, when the planet passed a star in the background. Flash several times before and after the real concealment, symmetrically at a distance from the planet. The seventh planet had reached Saturn, even if his rings are very dark and narrow. They cannot be seen with the eye of the telescope.
Voyager 2 was able to detect a total of eleven rings, which consist of larger particles than Saturn’s rings. In 2005, the Hubble Space Telescope discovered two widely wider rings that surround Uranus far beyond the previously known rings. They consist of very thin particles, similar to those of the Saturn Ring E.
The Uranus Rings System |A total of 13 rings surround the planet Uranus and there are numerous small moons in its neighborhood. The rings marked blank were discovered in 1977 when a hidden star, the most internal ring with the designation R1986 U2 found the American spatial probe Voyager 2 during its overflow in January 1986. The rings with the Greek letters NY and MY were discovered in 2005 with the Hubble Space Telescope.
LA VOGER 2 EXPLORA URANO
Uranus is a peculiar world, because the inclination of its axis with respect to the plane of its orbit is about 98 degrees. The planet seems to roll along its orbit and is subject to extreme seasonal effects during its 84 -year orbit period. Every 42 years, one of its rotation poles points to the sun, and then it is colder in Ecuador than in the illuminated pole. When the American voyager 2 space probe passed through Uranus, one of his poles pointed to the sun. The planet appeared in the eyes of the probe chamber as a perfect bluish ball almost without atmospheric characteristics.
Uranus seen from telescopes
However, subsequent recordings with the Hubble Space Telescope and the large terrestrial telescopes that observed Uranus at other times of the year revealed that Uranus has a live atmosphere with storms and tapes. No probe has visited Uranus since the Voyager 2, and currently Missions to the Seventh Planet are not planned.
Uranus’s atmosphere
The greenish color of the planet is due to the addition of methane gas, which absorbs red light. Uranus’s atmosphere predominantly consists of a mixture of hydrogen and helium, very similar to its internal neighbors Jupiter and Saturn. The temperature in the upper atmosphere is only 197 degrees Celsius or 76 Kelvin.
Uranus’s internal structure
More inward, pressure and temperature change rapidly, so that gases inside the planet reach high density. After approximately one third of the planet’s radius, a layer of high water pressure variants begins with methane and ammonia mixtures This mantle is easily deformable plastically and should also be the source of the Uranus magnetic field.
Due to this mantle, Uranus, like its Neptune outer neighbor, is also known as an ice giant. The pressure within Uranus and Neptune is not enough for hydrogen to appear in a metal phase, as is the case of Jupiter and Saturn. In the center of Uranus and also in Neptune, there is likely that there is a small nucleus made of silicate minerals and metals. I could have the mass of the earth.
conclusion
The four giant planets of the Solar System, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are divided into two groups according to their internal structure: Gaseous giants and giant giants. Gaseous giants Jupiter and Saturn consist mainly of hydrogen, which is available in both liquid and metallic form. In contrast, within Uranus and Neptune ice giants, there are high pressure ice variants that are solid even at very high temperatures and do not evaporate. The core of all giant planets should consist of a mixture of silicate and metallic iron minerals.
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