Let's Not Joke About Uranus Trivia Quiz

Answer: William Herschel

Uranus was the first planet to be discovered with the aid of a telescope. More to the point, the first to be discovered since antiquity. When Herschel first spied the planet in 1781 he initially thought he'd spotted another star, or even a comet. It took another two years, and some further observation by fellow astronomer, Johann Bode, before Uranus became universally accepted as a planet.

Herschel, by now a resident of England, lobbied to have the planet named Georgium Sidus (Georgian Star), as a tribute to King George III, but this fell on deaf ears. In particular with the French, who wanted nothing to do with an English king. As a consequence, the name "Herschel" was allocated to the planet until "Uranus", the Greek god of the sky, and suggested by Bode, was adopted universally.

(Footnote) The story that Herschel claimed that Uranus could only be seen if it was a full moon is pure myth.

Answer: Shakespearean characters

Most of the planets in our solar system have satellites that have adopted names from Greek and Roman mythology. Uranus is an exception. Of the 27 known moons that it possesses, 24 have been named after characters from Shakespeare's plays. Of the remaining three, Belinda, and Umbriel, are characters from "The Rape of the Lock", a 1712 poem written by Alexander Pope. That leaves Ariel, who was both a character in Shakespeare's play "The Tempest" and the sylph who is the narrator in "The Rape of the Lock".

Five of Uranus' moons (oof... that's not a pun) are significant in size with Titania the largest and Ariel, the brightest. Umbriel, on the other hand, is very dark and the other two are Oberon and Miranda. The composition of these moons is said to be an approximate mix of half water ice and half rock. The outer moons remain somewhat of a mystery but are believed to be captured asteroids.

Answer: Names of some of its rings

Yes, Uranus has rings (and there's a punch line there waiting for a decent comedian to come along). They are faint, but they are there. There are 13 rings in total formed into two sets. The innermost system contains nine rings that are dark grey in colour. In the outer set the first two have a reddish hue while the outermost two are blue, in a similar vein to Saturn's E ring.

Starting at the innermost ring and moving outward, the names are; Zeta, 6, 5, 4, Alpha, Beta, Eta, Gamma, Delta, Lambda, Epsilon, Nu and Mu.

Answer: No

Uranus has temperatures and pressures that are too extreme for life (as we know it) to be able to adapt and to survive in its environment. The three main gases that comprise its atmosphere are hydrogen (82%), helium (15%) and methane (2%). There is also some water and ammonia in the mix.

Its winds (forgive me, but there is no delicate way to use Uranus and wind in the same sentence) can reach speeds of up to 900 kilometres an hour (560 mph) and her temperatures are as low as 49 Kelvin (-224 Celsius/ -372 Fahrenheit).

Answer: Methane

Once again, with methane and Uranus, I am treading cautiously on a thin ice giant. Methane makes up a fraction more than two percent of the planet's atmosphere. When sunlight tries to pass through the atmosphere it is reflected back by Uranus' clouds. But, before it does, the methane in the atmosphere absorbs all of the red portions of the light's spectrum, leaving only the blue-green to be reflected back.

Answer: 63 times

That means you can fit 63 Earths into Uranus (OK, enough is enough). Seriously though, Uranus has the third largest diameter of the planets in our solar system. It has a radius of 25,362 kilometres (15,759 miles), which makes it four times wider than Earth. If you're struggling to picture that, then picture a nickel alongside a softball and, relatively speaking, that would be close.

(Footnote) The million dollar question hint stemmed from the phrase "the 64 million dollar question", which, generally, referred to something that was important but its outcome was unknown.

Answer: True

Scientist believe that this unique tilt (97.77 degrees) may have come about by the planet having collided with another significant object, possibly as big as the Earth, many years ago.

As a consequence of this tilt, Uranus ends up having some extreme seasons. The sun will shine on the poles for almost a quarter of the Uranian year. That may not sound like much until you discover that a Uranian year is the equivalent of 84 Earth years. That means while one hemisphere is enjoying sunlight, the other is plunged into a dark winter that lasts for 21 of our Earth years.

The tilt also means that the planet is spinning sideways while orbiting the sun. Picture a softball being rolled while it orbits around a central object. Uranus is also one of two planets, the other is Venus, that rotates east to west, the opposite direction of most planets.

Answer: The planet is the densest in our solar system

Your terrestrial planets are your densest planets. To this end, Earth, followed by Mercury, are our two most dense planets. Uranus is at the other end of the scale and is the second least dense planet. Only Saturn is less dense.

Uranus is a gas giant (yes, I know what I did there), which means that it is mainly made up of hydrogen and helium. It also means that it doesn't have any hard surfaces. It is, essentially, a ball of swirling gases and fluids, sitting above a solid core. If we ever wanted to explore the surface of Uranus, that's supposing we could ever find a metal that would withstand this planet's extraordinary pressures, we would have no place to land our craft.

Answer: 9 ½ years

The question I really wanted to ask was "how long would it take to get from the Earth to Uranus"? However, that answer was dependent on too many variables. The main ones being the path that would be chosen and where the two planets were in relation to their orbits when you chose to undertake the mission.

If we wanted to compare by distance alone, the distance from the Earth to the sun is described as an astronomical unit (AU). Uranus is 19.8 astronomical units away from the sun. Sunlight would take two hours and 40 minutes to reach Uranus. Voyager 2 didn't quite travel at the speed of light, it left Earth on August 20, 1977 and reached Uranus on January 24, 1986.

Answer: Slightly lower than Earth's (89%)

When you look at the size of Uranus (did I really say that) in comparison to Earth it is quite remarkable to find that their gravity fields are reasonably similar. Size isn't everything. Yes, mass is important, but what is of greater significance is how closely that mass is held together. Being a gas giant means that Uranus' mass is not that closely held. Consider this, Uranus has the volume to hold 63 Earths yet, despite this, it only has a mass that is only 14 times greater than ours.

In short, if you (could have) stood on the surface of Uranus you'd almost experience similar gravity to that on Earth. If you weighed 100 pounds on Earth, you'd weigh 89 pounds on Uranus. It also means that if you jumped on Uranus, either horizontally or vertically, the results would be better than they would be on Earth, but not significantly different.