millennium (I mean it. Don't make me come back there). In fact, we can safely say that science today would be entirely different, if it weren't for Uranus.
I can wait until you're done , you know.
"Uranus," of course, has nothing at all to do with your terminal excretory sphincter. First off, it's pronouned "yooor- ah -nus," not "Yer Anus," as folks as so wont to do. Second, the word refers to one of the oldest characters in Greek mythology, the personification of the cosmos , who with Gaia, the personification of the Earth, sired the Titans. They in turn sired the Olympian Gods, whose names (the Roman versions) grace the other planets, excepting Saturn, a Titan, and our own.
When Uranus was given its name, it was to imply the majesty of the vasty reaches of the universe. Its present status as the butt of butt jokes is an unfortunate and mean-spirited coincidence. One assumes that if astronomers had wanted to go that way, they simply would have named it "Big Ass Planet." And thus, we have my final discursion on the duodenal qualities of this planet's name.
Uranus is exciting because for the majority of the millennium, humans didn't even know it existed; it was the first new planet observed by humans since we looked up and noticed some "stars" were moving against the static backdrop of the sky. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were all bright enough to see in the night sky (Venus, in fact, was commonly regarded as two separate planets, depending on whether it was visible in the night or morning sky). Uranus, on the other hand, was too far away from the sun -- 1.8 billion miles or so -- to reflect enough light to be seen. Don't mind me , it said. I'll just sit here in the dark.
It had to wait until 1781 and English astronomer William Herschel for discovery. Hershel was doing a survey of the night sky, looking for stars down to the eighth magnitude of brightness (about five times dimmer than most humans can see with the naked eye) when he came across disk just plopped down there in the middle of a star field. Stars are too far away to present a disc shape, and it had no tail and a slow, regular motion across the sky -- it had to be a planet. And so it was. The discovery of Uranus led directly to the discovery of the next planet, Neptune, after discrepancies in Uranus' orbit suggested there was yet another planet out there. Neptune's discovery in turn suggested the existence of yet another planet -- Pluto. It was like getting three planets for the price of one.
This would be enough to qualify Uranus for Planet of the Millennium honors -- but wait, there's more . Every member of our solar family has its odd quirks; Venus has a day that's longer than its year, Jupiter has its Red Spot, Saturn its rings, and Earth -- well, Earth's got us . Be that as it may, Uranus has got some truly freaky things going on. First off, the planet's axis of rotation is tilted some 97 degrees, which means that relative to all the other planets (whose axes are more or less pointing perpendicular to their orbits) Uranus is on its side. It's fallen down and it can't get up. Its magnetic poles are additionally skewed by nearly 60 degrees from the rotational poles, and -- get this -- the magnetic core of the planet is offset from the actual planetary core by 30%. So, you know, don't bother to bring a compass.
There's more, like the fact that Uranus produces anomalously small amounts of internal heat for a gas giant, and the fact that spectral analysis reveals the planet to be mostly various types of ice; in effect, it's God's Sno-Cone. But you get the point: Uranus is just a big mess (stop that). If any planet could be a metaphor for the freakish, off-kilter and frankly inexplicable times we live in, this is the one.
There's a reason we discovered it when we did, and not just because Bill Hershel just happened to be using one of those new-fangled telescope thingies. We found it because the timing was right. And if we end up making fun of
I can wait until you're done , you know.
"Uranus," of course, has nothing at all to do with your terminal excretory sphincter. First off, it's pronouned "yooor- ah -nus," not "Yer Anus," as folks as so wont to do. Second, the word refers to one of the oldest characters in Greek mythology, the personification of the cosmos , who with Gaia, the personification of the Earth, sired the Titans. They in turn sired the Olympian Gods, whose names (the Roman versions) grace the other planets, excepting Saturn, a Titan, and our own.
When Uranus was given its name, it was to imply the majesty of the vasty reaches of the universe. Its present status as the butt of butt jokes is an unfortunate and mean-spirited coincidence. One assumes that if astronomers had wanted to go that way, they simply would have named it "Big Ass Planet." And thus, we have my final discursion on the duodenal qualities of this planet's name.
Uranus is exciting because for the majority of the millennium, humans didn't even know it existed; it was the first new planet observed by humans since we looked up and noticed some "stars" were moving against the static backdrop of the sky. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were all bright enough to see in the night sky (Venus, in fact, was commonly regarded as two separate planets, depending on whether it was visible in the night or morning sky). Uranus, on the other hand, was too far away from the sun -- 1.8 billion miles or so -- to reflect enough light to be seen. Don't mind me , it said. I'll just sit here in the dark.
It had to wait until 1781 and English astronomer William Herschel for discovery. Hershel was doing a survey of the night sky, looking for stars down to the eighth magnitude of brightness (about five times dimmer than most humans can see with the naked eye) when he came across disk just plopped down there in the middle of a star field. Stars are too far away to present a disc shape, and it had no tail and a slow, regular motion across the sky -- it had to be a planet. And so it was. The discovery of Uranus led directly to the discovery of the next planet, Neptune, after discrepancies in Uranus' orbit suggested there was yet another planet out there. Neptune's discovery in turn suggested the existence of yet another planet -- Pluto. It was like getting three planets for the price of one.
This would be enough to qualify Uranus for Planet of the Millennium honors -- but wait, there's more . Every member of our solar family has its odd quirks; Venus has a day that's longer than its year, Jupiter has its Red Spot, Saturn its rings, and Earth -- well, Earth's got us . Be that as it may, Uranus has got some truly freaky things going on. First off, the planet's axis of rotation is tilted some 97 degrees, which means that relative to all the other planets (whose axes are more or less pointing perpendicular to their orbits) Uranus is on its side. It's fallen down and it can't get up. Its magnetic poles are additionally skewed by nearly 60 degrees from the rotational poles, and -- get this -- the magnetic core of the planet is offset from the actual planetary core by 30%. So, you know, don't bother to bring a compass.
There's more, like the fact that Uranus produces anomalously small amounts of internal heat for a gas giant, and the fact that spectral analysis reveals the planet to be mostly various types of ice; in effect, it's God's Sno-Cone. But you get the point: Uranus is just a big mess (stop that). If any planet could be a metaphor for the freakish, off-kilter and frankly inexplicable times we live in, this is the one.
There's a reason we discovered it when we did, and not just because Bill Hershel just happened to be using one of those new-fangled telescope thingies. We found it because the timing was right. And if we end up making fun of
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