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Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun.It is a gaseous cyan-coloured ice giant.Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls "ice" or volatiles.
Understanding more about Uranus can also aid astronomers as they study the thousands of ice giant-size exoplanets discovered outside of our solar system to shed light on how those worlds may have ...
Uranus was the last giant planet without any known irregular moons until 1997, when astronomers using ground-based telescopes discovered Sycorax and Caliban. From 1999 to 2003, astronomers continued searching for irregular moons of Uranus using more powerful ground-based telescopes, resulting in the discovery of seven more Uranian irregular ...
The exploration of Uranus has, to date, been through telescopes and a lone probe by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft, which made its closest approach to Uranus on January 24, 1986. Voyager 2 discovered 10 moons , studied the planet's cold atmosphere , and examined its ring system , discovering two new rings.
Later they found four additional rings: one between the β and γ rings and three inside the α ring. [7] The former was named the η ring. The latter were dubbed rings 4, 5 and 6—according to the numbering of the occultation events in one paper. [8] Uranus' ring system was the second to be discovered in the Solar System, after that of Saturn ...
Three-decade old data may have just led scientists to make a new discovery about Uranus.
Because the moon is small and dark, it was not seen in the heavily scrutinized images taken by Voyager 2 during its Uranus flyby in 1986. However, it is brighter than another moon, Perdita, which was discovered from Voyager's photos in 1997. This led scientists to re-examine the old photos again, and the satellite was finally found in the ...
S/2023 U 1 is the smallest and faintest natural satellite of Uranus known, with a diameter of around 8–12 km (5–7 mi). It was discovered on 4 November 2023 by Scott S. Sheppard using the 6.5-meter Magellan–Baade Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile, and later announced on 23 February 2024. [1]