Uranus

Uranus is best around opposition, when Earth passes between it and the Sun. Then it rises around sunset, is up all night and is at its brightest.

The next opposition is on November 25, 2026.

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, an ice giant about four times wider than Earth. It was the first planet discovered with a telescope, by William Herschel in 1781.

Its blue-green color comes from methane in its atmosphere, which absorbs red light. Beneath the clouds, most of the planet is thought to be a dense fluid of water, methane and ammonia.

Uranus is tipped over on its side, with its spin axis tilted about 98°. As it travels around its 84-year orbit, each pole spends decades in sunlight and then decades in darkness. It also has a faint ring system and many moons.

Only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has visited Uranus, flying past in 1986.

Herschel at first thought he had found a comet. Its slow, steady motion soon showed it was a planet, and its discovery doubled the known size of the Solar System. Its name comes from the Greek god of the sky.

Its faint rings were discovered in 1977, when Uranus passed in front of a star and the starlight flickered before and after the planet. Its larger moons, such as Titania, Oberon, Ariel, Umbriel and Miranda, are named after characters from the works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope.