11/30/2015
Uranus
William Herschel - 1781
Visible to the naked eye (barely)
Visited by Voyager II - 1986
1
11/30/2015
Rock
Compressed water,
methane, ammonia ocean
Liquid H, He
Magnetic field is tilted and off axis
Rings
Uranus’ Satellites - 27
2
11/30/2015
Small, icy worlds
Miranda - The Fractured Moon
Huge
Cliff!
3
11/30/2015
Strange
patterns
Discoloration
Why?
Neptune
1846 - An Englishman, a Frenchman and a German walked
into a bar and...
John Couch Adams Urbain Le Verrier
Co-discoverers
Johann Galle
Voyager 2 flew by in August 1989
Similar to Uranus
Composition
Mass, radius
Cloud structures
Magnetic fields
More active atmosphere
4
11/30/2015
Great Dark Spot
Analogous to the
Great Red Spot
Rings
Ring Arcs
5
11/30/2015
Neptune’s Moons
13 known satellites
Small icy worlds
Heavily cratered
Triton - The Geyser World
Geysers erupt gas (nitrogen and methane) and methane ice
Triton’s unusual orbit - tidal heated
6
11/30/2015
Kuiper Belt
Pluto
Discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh
New Horizons
Launch January 2006
Arrival July 2015
7
11/30/2015
8
11/30/2015
Eris & Sedna
9
11/30/2015
Are these planets?
10