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Seventh planet from the Sun.
It was discovered in 1781 by William Herschel (see Herschel family ) and named for the Greek god personifying heaven. A blue-green gas giant, it has almost 15 times the mass of Earth and over 50 times its volume. It is less dense than Earth; the gravity at the top of its atmosphere is 11% weaker. Its equatorial diameter is 31,800 mi (51,100 km). Uranus has 10 sharply defined narrow, dark rings, with broad dust bands between them consisting mainly of boulder-sized chunks of dark material. It also has at least 21 moons (most named after Shakespearean characters) and a magnetic field about as strong as Earth's. The planet is estimated to rotate about every 17 hours around an unusual axis that is almost parallel to the ecliptic ; from Earth it appears to spin on its side. It takes 84 years to orbit the Sun, at a mean distance of 1.78 billion mi (2.87 billion km). Its interior is thought to consist of a mixture of rock, ices, and gas, with little or no rocky core. Its upper atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium; the blue-green colour comes from absorption of red light by the small amount of methane present.
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or Ouranus
Ancient Greek personification of heaven .
When Gaea emerged from Chaos , she produced Uranus, the mountains, and the sea. Her subsequent union with Uranus produced the Cronus castrated Uranus. From the drops of blood that fell on Earth were born the Furies , the Giants, and the ash-tree nymphs called Meliai. His severed genitals floated on the sea, producing a white foam from which sprang {{link=Aphrodite">Aphrodite . Uranus also consorted with Clymene, Hemera, Hestia , and Nyx.