Uranus Essay -- essays research papers

The bland aquamarine face of Uranus bears witness to the fact that Uranus is enshrouded in clouds. The planet appears to be blue-green because the atmosphere absorbs the, red wavelengths of the visible spectrum, . The uniformity of the planet's appearance confirms that the planet's atmosphere is composed almost solely of one element, methane gas. There is a preponderance of haze, composed of ethane and other hydrocarbon ices high in the stratosphere, and clouds of methane ice low in the troposphere. The cloud particles constantly recycle themselves, first creating then destroying the heaviest crystals. This is an indication that Uranus' atmosphere is still evolving from its formation out of the solar nebula. Because Uranus lies on its side, Uranus has very strange seasons. Motions in the cloud patterns indicate that, like Jupiter and Saturn, the basic meteorology of Uranus can be described as a striped pattern of winds. This means that, even though the pattern is difficult to distin quish, Uranus is striped, just like Jupiter and Saturn. Uranus has 21 fascinating moons and a complicated ring system. The ring system is a completely different form of ring system than that found at Saturn or Jupiter. At Uranus there is even a very obvious partial ring, or "ring arc". Many moons are icy moons with fascinating surface features. These icy moons have neither an atmosphere nor a magnetosphere, and there is not much possibility for life. The surfaces of these moons indic...