How long is Uranus's orbit?

Uranus takes 84.02 years to go once round the Sun. It is travelling at 6.72 km/s at the moment — a speed that changes through the orbit, fastest at perihelion and slowest at aphelion.

What shape is Uranus's orbit?

An ellipse with the Sun at one focus, not at the centre. Its eccentricity is 0.0473, derived here from the perihelion and aphelion distances rather than quoted: 18.28 AU at closest and 20.10 AU at furthest, a difference of 271,713,315 km.

Where is Uranus in its orbit now?

19.44 AU from the Sun — 2.91 billion km — which is 64% of the way from its closest point to its furthest. It next reaches perihelion on 15 August 2050.

Uranus

Uranus's orbit

Once round the Sun every 84.02 years, on an ellipse drawn here from the ephemeris rather than from a formula.

Looking down on the plane of the ecliptic, traced from the ephemeris over one full orbit of 84.0 years. Saturn’s orbit is the faint one, for scale. The Sun sits off the centre of the ellipse — that offset is the eccentricity, and it is why the two distances differ.

Orbital period: 84.02; years for one lap
Eccentricity: 0.0473; 0 would be a circle
Semi-major axis: 19.19; AU · the orbit's average radius
Speed now: 6.72; km/s, from the ephemeris

What is worth knowing about it

Uranus orbits on its side — its axis is tipped 98 degrees, so each pole spends about forty-two years in continuous sunlight and then forty-two in darkness. The orbit itself is unremarkable; the thing travelling round it is not.

The shape of it

Uranus does not travel a circle. It comes as close as 18.28 AU (2.74 billion km) and goes as far as 20.10 AU (3.01 billion km) — aphelion is 1.10 times further out than perihelion, a swing of 271,713,315 km. At 0.0473 the orbit is close to circular. The difference is real and measurable, but not something the eye would pick out of a drawing.

Because the Sun sits at a focus rather than the centre, Uranus does not move at a constant speed either. It runs fastest when it is closest and slowest when it is furthest, sweeping equal areas in equal times — which is Kepler's second law, and is visible in the diagram above as the uneven spacing of a constant time step.

Where it is now

Today Uranus is 19.44 AU from the Sun, 64% of the way from perihelion to aphelion, travelling at 6.72 km/s. It reaches perihelion on 15 August 2050 at 18.28 AU.

Common questions

How long is Uranus's orbit?: Uranus takes 84.02 years to go once round the Sun. It is travelling at 6.72 km/s at the moment — a speed that changes through the orbit, fastest at perihelion and slowest at aphelion.
What shape is Uranus's orbit?: An ellipse with the Sun at one focus, not at the centre. Its eccentricity is 0.0473, derived here from the perihelion and aphelion distances rather than quoted: 18.28 AU at closest and 20.10 AU at furthest, a difference of 271,713,315 km.
Where is Uranus in its orbit now?: 19.44 AU from the Sun — 2.91 billion km — which is 64% of the way from its closest point to its furthest. It next reaches perihelion on 15 August 2050.

Positions from VSOP87 via Astronomy Engine, accurate to within one arcminute. The orbit above is traced by sampling a full period rather than drawn from elements, so the tilt and the off-centre Sun are the real ones. See Uranus’s distance from the Sun, Uranus right now, or watch the whole system move in the live simulation.