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Nevertheless, Uranus is hotter at its equator than at its poles. The underlying mechanism that causes this is unknown. The reason for Uranus's unusual axial tilt is also not known with certainty, but the usual speculation is that during the formation of the Solar System, an Earth-sized protoplanet collided with Uranus, causing the skewed ...
The orbits of the regular moons are nearly coplanar with Uranus's equator, which is tilted 97.77° to its orbit. Uranus's irregular moons have elliptical and strongly inclined (mostly retrograde) orbits at large distances from the planet. [3] William Herschel discovered the first two moons, Titania and Oberon, in 1787.
Venus rotates clockwise, and Uranus has been knocked on its side and rotates almost perpendicular to the rest of the Solar System. The ecliptic remains within 3° of the invariable plane over five million years, [2] but is now inclined about 23.44° to Earth's celestial equator used for the coordinates of poles. This large inclination means ...
For this reason, scientists often classify Uranus and Neptune as "ice giants" to distinguish them from the gas giants. Uranus's atmosphere is similar to Jupiter's and Saturn's in its primary composition of hydrogen and helium , but it contains more " ices " such as water, ammonia , and methane , along with traces of other hydrocarbons .
Miranda, also designated Uranus V, is the smallest and innermost of Uranus's five round satellites. It was discovered by Gerard Kuiper on 16 February 1948 at McDonald Observatory in Texas , and named after Miranda from William Shakespeare 's play The Tempest . [ 9 ]
According to the IAU's explicit count, there are eight planets in the Solar System; four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and four giant planets, which can be divided further into two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). When excluding the Sun, the four giant planets account for more than ...
Chart of lunar maria with lines of longitude and latitude. The prime meridian is the centre of the near side of the Moon.. A planetary coordinate system (also referred to as planetographic, planetodetic, or planetocentric) [1] [2] is a generalization of the geographic, geodetic, and the geocentric coordinate systems for planets other than Earth.
Oberon orbits Uranus at a distance of about 584,000 km, being the farthest from the planet among its five major moons. [e] Oberon's orbit has a small orbital eccentricity and inclination relative to the equator of Uranus. [4] Its orbital period is around 13.5 days, coincident with its rotational period.