Once considered one of the blander-looking planets, Uranus
(pronounced YOOR un nus) has been revealed as a dynamic world with
some of the brightest clouds in the outer solar system and 11
rings. The first planet found with the aid of a telescope, Uranus
was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel. The seventh
planet from the Sun is so distant that it takes 84 years to
complete one orbit. Uranus, with no solid surface, is one of the
gas giant planets (the others are Jupiter, Saturn, and
Neptune).
The atmosphere of Uranus is composed primarily of hydrogen and
helium, with a small amount of methane and traces of water and
ammonia. Uranus gets its blue-green color from methane gas.
Sunlight is reflected from Uranus' cloud tops, which lie beneath a
layer of methane gas. As the reflected sunlight passes back through
this layer, the methane gas absorbs the red portion of the light,
allowing the blue portion to pass through, resulting in the
blue-green color that we see.
Other caches in this series:
GC15YAM
Solar System Challenge GC15YAR Cowboy Sun GC15YAT Cowboy
Mercury GC15YAY Cowboy Venus GC15YB1 Cowboy
Earth / Moon GC15YB5 Cowboy Mars GC15YB7 Cowboy
Jupiter GC15YB8 Cowboy Saturn GC15YBC Cowboy
Neptune GC15YBE Cowboy Pluto
FTF
"Hart2Hartx4" Oct 8th, 2007
Placed by a Nebraskache Member