Uranus Poster – Version C
| Credit | NASA |
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Version A of the Uranus installment of our solar system poster series.
The posters are best printed on 11x17 paper. Several download options are available in the column on the right.
About the image: This infrared composite image of Uranus and its rings comes from the Keck Telescope. Credit: Lawrence Sromovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison/W.W. Keck Observatory
On the Back
The seventh planet from the Sun with the third largest diameter in our solar system, Uranus is very cold and windy.
The giant planet is surrounded by faint rings and more than two dozen small moons as it rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. This unique tilt makes Uranus appear to spin on its side.
Uranus is blue-green in color due to large amounts of methane, which absorbs red light but allows blues to be reflected back into space. The atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, but also includes large amounts of water, ammonia and methane.
The first planet found with the aid of a telescope, Uranus was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel, although he originally thought it was either a comet or a star. Herschel tried unsuccessfully to name his discovery Georgium Sidus after his patron, English king George III. Instead, the planet was eventually named for Uranus, the Greek god of the sky, who was also the father of Kronos (or Saturn).
Explore the planet Uranus in depth at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/uranus