Category: OuterPlanets

Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and the first to be discovered by scientists. Although Uranus is visible to the naked eye, it was long mistaken as a star because of the planet’s dimness and slow orbit. The planet is also notable for its dramatic tilt, which causes its axis to point nearly directly at the sun.

Uranus was named after the Greek sky deity Ouranos, the earliest of the lords of the heavens. It is the only planet to be named after a Greek god rather than a Roman one. Before the name was settled on, many names had been proposed for the new planet, including Hypercronius (“above Saturn”), Minerva (the Roman goddess of wisdom), and Herschel, after its discoverer. To flatter King George III of England, Herschel himself offered Georgium Sidus (“The Georgian Planet”) as a name, but that idea was unpopular outside of England and George’s native Hanover. German astronomer Johann Bode, who detailed Uranus’ orbit, gave the planet its ultimate name. Bode argued that as Saturn was the father of Jupiter, the new planet should be named for the father of Saturn. Bode’s colleague, Martin Klaproth, supported his choice and named his newly discovered element “uranium.”

Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest planet in the solar system. Saturn was the Roman name for Cronus, the lord of the Titans in Greek mythology. Saturn is the root of the English word “Saturday.”

Saturn is the farthest planet from Earth visible to the naked human eye, but it is through a telescope that the planet’s most outstanding features can be seen: Saturn’s rings. Although the other gas giants in the solar system — Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune — also have rings, those of Saturn are without a doubt the most extraordinary.

Its atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, and it also rotates quickly (10.7 Earth hours) relative to its time to circle the Sun (29 Earth years). Saturn is currently being visited by the Cassini spacecraft, which will fly closer to the planet’s rings in the coming years.

Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Fittingly, it was named after the king of the gods in Roman mythology. In a similar manner, the ancient Greeks named the planet after Zeus, the king of the Greek pantheon.

Jupiter helped revolutionize the way we saw the universe and ourselves in 1610, when Galileo discovered Jupiter’s four large moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, now known as the Galilean moons. This was the first time that celestial bodies were seen circling an object other than Earth, major support of the Copernican view that Earth was not the center of the universe.

Its thick atmosphere is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium, perhaps surrounding a terrestrial core that is about Earth’s size. The planet has dozens of moons, some faint rings and a Great Red Spot — a raging storm happening for the past 400 years at least (since we were able to view it through telescopes). NASA’s Juno spacecraft is en route and will visit there in 2016.