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The total mass of ice in Uranus's interior is not precisely known, because different figures emerge depending on the model chosen; it must be between 9.3 and 13.5 Earth masses. [ 17 ] [ 83 ] Hydrogen and helium constitute only a small part of the total, with between 0.5 and 1.5 Earth masses. [ 17 ]
Rotation period with respect to distant stars, the sidereal rotation period (compared to Earth's mean Solar days) Synodic rotation period (mean Solar day) Apparent rotational period viewed from Earth Sun [i] 25.379995 days (Carrington rotation) 35 days (high latitude) 25 d 9 h 7 m 11.6 s 35 d ~28 days (equatorial) [2] Mercury: 58.6462 days [3 ...
As viewed from Earth during the year, the Sun appears to slowly drift along an imaginary path coplanar with Earth's orbit, known as the ecliptic, on a spherical background of seemingly fixed stars. [5] Each synodic day, this gradual motion is a little less than 1° eastward (360° per 365.25 days), in a manner known as prograde motion.
Earth's rotation period relative to the International Celestial Reference Frame, called its stellar day by the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), is 86 164.098 903 691 seconds of mean solar time (UT1) (23 h 56 m 4.098 903 691 s, 0.997 269 663 237 16 mean solar days). [35] [n 3] Earth's rotation period relative to ...
What’s known about Uranus could be off the mark. An unusual cosmic occurrence during the Voyager 2 spacecraft’s 1986 flyby might have skewed how scientists characterized the ice giant, new ...
A solar wind event squashed the protective bubble around Uranus just before Voyager 2 flew by the planet in 1986, shifting how astronomers understood the mysterious world.
The rotation axis of the Earth describes, over a period of 25,700 years, a small blue circle among the stars near the top of the diagram, centered on the ecliptic north pole (the blue letter E) and with an angular radius of about 23.4°, an angle known as the obliquity of the ecliptic. The direction of precession is opposite to the daily ...
For example, the synodic period of the Moon's orbit as seen from Earth, relative to the Sun, is 29.5 mean solar days, since the Moon's phase and position relative to the Sun and Earth repeats after this period. This is longer than the sidereal period of its orbit around Earth, which is 27.3 mean solar days, owing to the motion of Earth around ...