planet
Uranus
Tipped 98 degrees, so it rolls along its orbit and each pole spends 42 years in continuous sunlight. Methane high in the atmosphere absorbs red light and leaves the flat pale cyan behind.
Position
Computed on . For a continuously updating figure, open the live simulation.
When to look
Uranus is best placed at opposition, when Earth passes between it and the Sun. It then rises at sunset, stands highest at midnight, and is at its closest and brightest.
| Date (UTC) | Event | Distance from Earth |
|---|---|---|
| opposition | 18.44 AU | |
| opposition | 18.38 AU | |
| opposition | 18.31 AU | |
| opposition | 18.24 AU |
About Uranus
Uranus is tipped 97.8°, effectively rolling along its orbit. Each pole gets 42 years of continuous daylight followed by 42 years of darkness, which produces a pattern of insolation unlike anywhere else in the system. It sits right at the edge of naked-eye visibility, and was catalogued as a star more than once before Herschel recognised it as a planet in 1781.
Physical data
- Diameter
- 51,118 km
- Mass
- 14.5 earths
- Surface gravity
- 8.87 m/s2
- Rotation
- 17h 14m retrograde
- Year
- 84.0 y
- Axial tilt
- 97.8 deg
- Cloud tops
- -197 C
- Moons
- 28
Positions from VSOP87, accurate to within one arcminute. Physical constants are published values and are not computed here.