URANUS was regarded by many as a star because it apparently made no movement against the more distant starry background. It did move, but its recurring displacement, painfully slow as it was, led to it being considered a different star each time it was sighted!

Named after a Greek god, the father of Saturn, the huge planet Uranus has an interesting story about its discovery. It was known for sometime that a celestial object, long regarded by some astronomers and observers of the skies who had seen this body hanging faintly in a distant corner of the sky, as either a dim star or perhaps a comet.

As a comet it was soon ruled out because it failed to develop (grow) a tail over time, which it inevitably does as it approaches the superheated sun gradually, but ominously, in the course of its highly elongated orbit around the sun — quite different from the orbits of planets, which as you know, go about their business in slightly elongated circles.

Despite at least 18 sightings of this object by various astronomers, the object, lurking inside the constellation Gemini, between the major stars, named Pollux and Castor, (a reasonably narrow area in the sky, where it was ‘ parked’ at that point in time), the riddle was not solved as they all erred one way or the other. The same is the case when the question whether it was a star came up.

Although it was regarded by many as a star, the glaring confusion occurred when, despite the lapse of time, it apparently made no movement against the more distant starry background. At least they thought so. That should have been enough for them to finally declare it a star, if erroneously. In fact it did move, but its recurring displacement, painfully slow as it was, was thought to be a different star each time it was sighted! So they erred again, though not for long.

Finally, it was left to William Herschel, the German genius (who had since adopted England as his new home, and astronomy as his new profession, besides music) to seal the frenzy over the search by discovering it in March 1861. Even he thought of it as a star, except for the very little but noticeable movement it made night after night.

Soon after the discovery of the elusive dot in the sky, and Herschel’s reluctance in claiming credit for the great discovery, a great deal of activity followed that set into motion the search for yet another interloper, besides Uranus, hiding in the cold depths of the frigid outer space. That story will come later. Let us focus on its atmosphere of thick gasses and unbearable pressures as we descend towards the hostile surface of the mighty planet more than four times larger than Earth.

After a brief look at the atmosphere, we shall consider the planet’s core, then its many, many moons, and finally the ring system of the planet to somehow try to solve the mystery as to why the Jovian planets invariably have rings around them. Jupiter, Saturn, now Uranus and later on Neptune, all have rings of rocky as well as frozen matter around them.

Before we proceed further, there is a person to recall, a martyr to science — our old friend Giordano Bruno (1548-1600). Although not really a scientist, or a regular observer of the skies, he struggled single-handedly against the stubborn forces of ignorance. In many countries of Europe, and also in England, he was treated very shabbily. His fault and ‘sin’ was that he propagated the freedom of expression, as well as free thought. That everyone must be allowed to hold an opinion on how big the universe is; its size and age; and that there is nothing special about planet Earth which is merely an ordinary celestial object in the universe.

These teachings were the exact opposite of the teachings of the church in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. Naturally, it took great offence to Mr Bruno’s utterances and writings. He was called a heretic, anti-God, in fact an atheist who deserved to be punished harshly. At the end of a long trial forced on him by the church, in fact the dreaded Inquisition, he was strung up on the stake. Generations of free thinking beings have paid homage to this man, and forever they will.

Back to planet Uranus. As found elsewhere in the universe, planet Uranus has abundant presence of two main gasses: hydrogen and helium, besides a significant proportion of methane (roughly 75 per cent hydrogen and 25 per cent helium for the universe, of course with adjustment for other gases). Also, it is the coldest planet (-224C) in the Solar System.

Surprised? For there are at least two planets beyond Uranus, so, they should be colder still, but why they are not is something we shall look into a little while later.

The atmosphere of Uranus is the same as it was in the intrinsic stage. An intrinsic stage of anything is the real, original state, in which it came into existence, whenever it did.

Call it primeval, if you may. No noticeable change in its nomenclature or profile has taken place despite a lapse of over four billion years since it came into being. The core does not generate any, or much, heat that would influence either its topography, or the atmosphere in a significant manner.

Any more about Uranus would be too much for one sitting! So, let us prolong the remainder for the next issue, when besides wrapping up Uranus, we shall move on to yet another gas giant: Neptune.