“A genius does not belong to the house where it takes its birth; it belongs to the world which is its true home. That is where it belongs.”

Uranus spins very fast on its axis, completing one spin in 17 hours. It is fast but nowhere as fast as big daddy Jupiter, which revolves on its axis once in only 10 hours. And considering the sprawling diameter of Jupiter, this is several times faster than Uranus.

The one stunning aspect is the fact that it has an ocean of water 8,000km deep. (In comparison the deepest portion of an ocean on the Earth is a ‘measly 35,000 feet,’ or 10 km deep! Mariana’s Trench is the place, in the north-west Pacific Ocean which came about as a result of movements in Plate Tectonics, over-lapping one another).

That it seems incredible is remarkable enough. One more surprising reality is that the core here is as large as the whole of Earth, releases no heat at all. Enigmatic, indeed! Perhaps this is the reason why it is the coldest of all planets — (-220C or 360F).

Also, it appears that the planet accreted (gathered nebular dust and gasses) somewhat later than the already-born Solar System — a few hundred million years or a billion years or so later. A confirmation is awaited yet! Over 85 per cent of the atmosphere is molecular hydrogen and 12pc is helium, and methane in traces. So it appears blue-green because methane absorbs red colour (virtually eats it up).

The presence of 27 moons makes it heavy on traffic. Most moons are average-size asteroids: flat, irregular and pock-marked that is nothing except broken hills. They have survived because they orbit the mother planet rapidly and craftily save themselves from plunging into it. You never know, some are only captured asteroids that happened to loiter nearby and got trapped. The largest moon is Titania, with a diameter of just 1,600km, others are much smaller. Like any moon they, including Oberon, the second largest, are full of craters.

As far as any geological activity such as earthquakes are concerned, these moons are largely dormant, and as such, sleepy places if anything. They appear to have frozen in time. Much, in fact all we know about Uranus is courtesy the visit of Voyager 2 in 1985-86. A few of its moons have been spotted by many Earth-based astronomers, which is incredible, but nothing more. The remaining moons became visible when Voyager-2 closed in on Uranus.

Surprisingly, Uranus, like Venus, rotates in retrograde direction which is contrary to all other planets. This is another guess (hazardous, as it is) that this planet ‘flew in’ from elsewhere in the course of the early universe; as you are aware, and joined the fray. More than four times larger than the Earth in diameter, its mass is 14.54 times more, thereby the escape velocity of 22km/second, very high compared with Earth’s 11.2. But on account of its great distance from the Sun (19.18 AUs to Earth’s 1) the orbital velocity of Uranus is 6.81 km/sec to 29.79 of the Earth. You are surely aware the nearer a planet is to the Sun the faster it has orbital velocity.

With Uranus lying at a great distance from the Sun, it does not have to rush because of decreased gravity of the Sun. Also it has a great deal to cover, requiring over 84 years to go around once. For Uranus to move (equal to) one full width of the full moon in the sky it takes 44.4 days, or say ½ degree of sedate movement. Lazy, isn’t it. It is another matter that the gravitational tug of Neptune and the tiny moons affects the giant who himself is not a bully, but is obliged to wobble a bit. But I suppose that it is accustomed to this, as you would be in four billion years time!

The Lone Ranger of the Solar System, playing safe lounging near the edge of the Solar System has strayed far out towards the end of the playing field, seems to be partying alone, way away from the madding crowd. Quite a recluse yet happy to be there, groggy, yet there!

Although there is much more to Uranus than just said, we have got to go on. For next is a planet called the twin of Uranus; it is Neptune. Named for the god of green seas (similar to the Greek god, Poseidon), it was named so for its colour.

Since it was rightly suspected, even worked out mathematically that a planet had been tugging at Uranus so it must be found out; and it was eventually found out.

Three astronomers went in hot pursuit: Urbain Leverrier (1811-1877), Johann Galle (1812-1910), and Ludwig D’ Arrest1822-1875) were successful on the night of September 23, 1846. The planet was found almost exactly where it was predicted, and promptly named. It cannot be ignored that John Couch Adams (1819-1892) calculated its presence but found it too tedious to follow through with telescope he instead gave the job to others!

Now we are ready to venture into the crazy space farther afield.

No face off is involved, for the next giant is not only gentle, but of almost the same size as Uranus. They are both the gentlemen of the solar System. The docility of this giant is evident from the fact that a tiny fella, with a name as pretentious as Pluto, enjoys the mantle of being the last planet of the solar bandwagon, despite the fact that Neptune is the last one. We’ll see how...

The discovery of Uranus had opened a so-called Pandora’s box-full of worms. That the giant went about its business gingerly, unlike other planet studied thus far, laid suspicion that another body was lurking in the vicinity. Nearby, of course, with the find of Uranus, by the musician of repute, William Herschell, the size of the then known universe had been doubled in any case. This was blasphemous enough; any further had better be true in all respects or else...

But 19th century had taken roots and the world was changing rapidly. Scientists began their probes relentlessly using a tool that would not betray them this time around, it was the mathematics. A full 65 years went by in searching… two generations of hardworking men and women (yes women too, and in large numbers, the first manifestation of gender equality), dedicated themselves to the search. A hot pursuit followed.

Come 1846. Zeroing in on a suspected interloper in their telescopes, thanks to mathematics for such a figure would never be visible with naked eye, John Couch Adams (1819-1892), Urbain Leverrier (1811-1877) and Gottfried Galle (1812-1910), who helped them in no small measure, found out the culprit!

Another gentle giant of the deep universe, Neptune is much like the neighbour, Uranus. Let us see how: Its diameter is 49,500km as compared to Uranus’ 51,800. One is 3.88 the size of the Earth, the other is 4.06. One rotates on its axis in 0.92 (22hours), the other in 1.05 Earth days (25hours). Escape velocity of Uranus is 21.2 k/sec that of Neptune is 23.6. It takes Neptune 164.80 years to go around the shepherd star, the Sun once. For Uranus it takes 84.1 years.

The one glaring difference between Neptune and Earth is that former is a gas giant, while the later is a solid, rocky planet, rather in a hurry completing one orbit in one solar year.