Uranus Facts for Kids

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The Seventh Planet

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third largest planet in the solar system. Uranus is named after the Greek god of the same name, the god of the sky.

Uranus Quick Facts

	Uranus	Earth
Type of Planet	Gas Giant	Terrestrial
Moons	Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, and at least 22 others	The Moon
Rings	13 known	None
Mass	8.681 × 10²⁵ kg	5.972 × 10²⁴ kg
Volume	6.833 × 10¹³ km³	1,083,000,000,000 km³
Closest Distance to Sun	2,749,000,000 km	147,100,000 km
Furthest Distance from Sun	3,004,000,000 km	152,100,000 km
Average Orbital Speed	24,520 kph	107,200 kph

Cool Facts About Uranus for Kids

Uranus has only been visited by one spacecraft.
NASA's Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus. On 24 January 1986, the spacecraft—which had been launched about 8 years earlier, having already visited Jupiter and Saturn— passed within about 81,500 km of the clouds on Uranus' surface. Voyager 2 then continued on to visit Neptune some 2 years later.
Uranus orbits the sun on its side.
With the exception of Venus, all the solar system planets rotate on their axes from west to east. Although they are all slightly tilted, Uranus is tilted to such an extreme degree that it's effectively rotating on its side.