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The pronunciation of the name Uranus preferred among astronomers is / ˈ jʊər ə n ə s / YOOR-ə-nəs, [1] with the long "u" of English and stress on the first syllable as in Latin Uranus, in contrast to / j ʊ ˈ r eɪ n ə s / yoo-RAY-nəs, with stress on the second syllable and a long a, though both are considered acceptable. [g]
This is a list of fast rotators—"minor planets" (which includes asteroids) that have an exceptionally short rotation period, i.e. high rotation rate or spin rate. In some cases the rotation period is not constant because the object tumbles (see List of tumblers ).
Six of the planets also rotate about their axis in this same direction. The exceptions – the planets with retrograde rotation – are Venus and Uranus. Venus's axial tilt is 177°, which means it is rotating almost exactly in the opposite direction to its orbit. Uranus has an axial tilt of 97.77°, so its axis of rotation is approximately ...
Alone but certainly unique, Uranus rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle and is surrounded by 13 icy rings. Images of which were captured in rich detail last year by the James Webb Space Telescope .
NASA scientists say Uranus' rings have only been captured by two other cameras. They were first scoped out by the Voyager 2 spacecraft as it flew past in 1986. Later, the Kec.
The length of a day on Uranus as measured by Voyager 2 is 17 hours, 14 minutes. [49] Uranus was shown to have a magnetic field that was misaligned with its rotational axis, unlike other planets that had been visited to that point, [50] [53] and a helix-shaped magnetic tail stretching 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) away from the Sun. [50]
In gravitationally bound systems, the orbital speed of an astronomical body or object (e.g. planet, moon, artificial satellite, spacecraft, or star) is the speed at which it orbits around either the barycenter (the combined center of mass) or, if one body is much more massive than the other bodies of the system combined, its speed relative to the center of mass of the most massive body.
In some cases where the orbit is eccentric and the tidal effect is relatively weak, the smaller body may end up in a so-called spin–orbit resonance, rather than being tidally locked. Here, the ratio of the rotation period of a body to its own orbital period is some simple fraction different from 1:1.