Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto By Joey, Lindsay, and Claire

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Uranus, Neptune, and PlutoBy Joey, Lindsay, and
Claire

• The three most outer planets mostly huge, mostly
  gaseous, ringed, and have many moons (Pluto,
  which is small, rocky, and has one large moon
  plus two tiny ones).
• Being the three planets farthest from the Sun,
  Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto have the coolest
  temperatures.
• Less dense than the inner planets.

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Uranus
Compared to EarthMass 14.5 times Earth's
Diameter 4.1 times Earth'sDistance from Sun
19.2 times as far
Uranus likely has a rocky core, surrounded by a
liquid mantle of water, methane, and ammonia, all
encased in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
It takes 84 Earth years for Uranus to orbit once
around the Sun.
Uranus and Earth
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Uranus Clouds and Satellites
A bizarre feature is how far over Uranus is
tipped. Its north pole -- representing the
planet's axis of rotation, lies 98 degrees from
being directly up and down to its orbit plane,
which means the planet is essentially on its side
in relation to the Sun. Thus, its seasons are
extreme when the Sun rises at its north pole, it
stays up for 42 Earth years then it sets and the
north pole is in darkness for 42 Earth years.
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Uranus rings - The scientists however suspect
that both of these rings are subject to forces
acting on dust in the rings, which allow the tiny
particles to survive while the larger ones are
captured by their moons.
Uranus lies nearly 2 billion miles from the Sun
and is the seventh planet out. It has a diameter
of about 31,763 miles and, according to flyby
magnetic data from Voyager 2 in 1986, has a
rotation period of 17.4 hours. At last count, the
planet has more than 20 moons another was just
announced last week. Along the plane of the
planets equator is also a complex of nine narrow,
nearly opaque rings, which were discovered in
1978.
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Neptune

• Cannot be seen with the naked eye. Was the first
  Planet whose existence was predicted
  mathematically.
• Blue color is caused by the methane in Neptune's
  atmosphere this molecule absorbs red light.
• Neptune is about 30,775 miles in diameter. This
  is 3.88 times the diameter of the Earth. If
  Neptune were hollow, it could hold almost 60
  Earths.
• Neptune is the 4th largest Planet in the Solar
  System.
• The gravity on Neptune is only 1.19 times of the
  gravity on Earth.

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Neptune from Voyager
-Discovered in 1843. -It is very similar to
Uranus in its size and it is surrounded by rings.
Also similar, is the temperature -200 deg C.
-Each day on Neptune takes 19.1 Earth hours. A
year on Neptune takes 164.8 Earth years it takes
almost 165 Earth years for Neptune to orbit the
sun once. -Neptune is the farthest Planet from
the Sun. -Neptune's rotational axis is tilted 30
degrees to the plane of its orbit around the Sun.
This gives Neptune seasons. Each season lasts 40
years the poles are in constant darkness or
sunlight for 40 years at a time.
Neptune was visited by NASA's Voyager 2 in
August, 1989. Before this visit, virtually
nothing was known about Neptune.
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Neptune and Triton
-Neptune has 8 satellites that we know of. The
two main ones are Triton and Nereid. Triton has a
very unusual orbit. It travels in the opposite
direction of the planet's own spin. It's cycle
takes 680 years.
-Triton is the seventh and the largest of
Neptunes 8 satellites. Neptune data (averages)
Diameter 30,775 miles Time to rotate 19
hours, 12 minutes Orbit 165 Earth years
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Pluto (The Dwarf Planet)
Charon was discovered by Jim Christy in 1978.
Charon was named after the mythological demon who
ferried people across the mythological river Styx
into Hades. The two tiny moons are from 30 and
100 miles in diameter, and orbit Pluto about
27,000 miles from Pluto, more than twice as far
as the orbit of Charon.
Pluto and Charon Fantasy
Pluto has one large moon, named Charon two
minuscule moons were discovered in 2005. Although
Charon is small, about 1,172 km (728 miles) in
diameter, it about half of the size of Pluto
itself. Charon orbits about 19,640 km from Pluto
on average. It may be covered by water ice and
probably has no atmosphere. Charon is in a
synchronous orbit around Pluto. That is, Charon
is always over the same spot on Pluto Charon's
orbit takes exactly one Pluto day.
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Pluto is a dwarf planet that usually orbits past
the orbit of Neptune. It was classified as a
dwarf planet in 2006 before that it was
considered to be a planet, the smallest planet in
our solar system. Pluto is smaller than a lot of
the other planets' moons, including our moon.
Pluto is the only "planet" in our solar system
that has not been visited by our spacecraft yet.
We only have blurry pictures of its surface even
the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting the Earth can
only get grainy photos because Pluto is so far
from us. In 2015, a spacecraft called New
Horizons (launched by NASA in 2006) will visit
Pluto.
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Pluto In Motion
-Pluto is 39 times farther from than the sun than
the Earth is. Pluto ranges from 2.8 to 4.6
billion miles from the Sun. Occasionally,
Neptune's orbit is actually outside that of
Pluto this is because of Pluto's highly
eccentric orbit. During this time (20 years out
of every 248 Earth years), Neptune is actually
the farthest planet from the Sun. From January
21, 1979 until February 11, 1999, Pluto was
inside the orbit of Neptune. Now and until
September 2226, Pluto is outside the orbit of
Neptune.
-Orbital EccentricityPluto has a very eccentric
orbit that means that its distance from the sun
varies a lot during its orbit around the sun.
Sometimes it is even closer to the Sun than the
planet Neptune (it was that way from January 1979
to February 11, 1999)! Pluto also rotates about
its axis in the opposite direction from most of
the other planets.
-Orbital InclinationPluto's orbit is tilted from
the plane of the ecliptic. This angle, its
orbital inclination, is 17.15. This is the
largest inclination of any of the planets.