7th Rock from the Sun

In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, 'In the reign of King George the Third.'


...wrote Herschel to Joseph Banks about the new planet he discovered in 1781. But little do people know that this planet was initially called Georgium Sidus, or the "Georgian Planet". Well I am not talking about a planet from some other solar system, I am just about Uranus or Ouranos(Greek God), father of Cronus(Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus(Jupiter).

Now why would I be talking about Uranus? It's just another gas giant in our solar system with not as many moons as Jupiter and frankly appears to have not much of activity happening on it(really?). But what interests me about this one is how it's axis is freakishly tilted to a relatively large angle of 97.77 degrees! Though Venus and Pluto(I'd like to think of Pluto still a part of the planet line-up) have larger angles of tilt, 97.77 gives Uranus a rather awkward and weird alignment. The axis more or less points towards the sun all throughout the planet's revolution around the star and if you lived at one of its poles(you can think about the possibility of this later :P) you'd experience 42 years (not days) of sunlight continuously and then 42 years of continuous darkness! Can you imagine that?? Happy time for those who love sleeping ain't it?

Georgium Sidus, thanks to its popular name, Uranus, has presented some pronunciation issues in popular lingo. Say "YOOR a nus" and not "your anus" or "urine us"(embarrassing connection for Uranus!). Though Uranus is the "butt" of all jokes, the most brilliant view of Uranus is from its back, as seen against the sun. One gets a magnificent picture of its rings and moons with the sun shining against it. You can see the moons revolving around Uranus like clockwork. 

When I saw the rings around Uranus, they looked like icy platforms. Wish someday I have the pleasure of dancing with a beautiful girl on these icy platforms! (that should be a sight :P). I enjoyed the pictures and video simulations of Uranus and its view from behind rather caught my eye! One has to see to believe...