German-born English astronomer William Herschel discovers Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. Herschel’s discovery of a new planet was the first to be made in modern times, and also the first to be made using a telescope, which enabled Herschel to distinguish Uranus as a planet and not like a star, as previous astronomers believed.
Herschel, who was later knighted for his historic discovery, named the planet Georgium Sidus, or the “Georgian planet”, in honor of King George III of England. However, the German astronomer Johann Bode proposed the name “Uranus” for the celestial body in order to conform to names derived from classical mythology of other known planets. Uranus, the ancient Greek deity of the heavens, was a predecessor of the Olympian gods. By the mid-19th century, it was also the generally accepted name for the seventh planet from the sun.
The planet Uranus is a gas giant like Jupiter and Saturn and is made up of hydrogen, helium, and methane. The third largest planet, Uranus revolves around the sun once every 84 Earth years and is the only planet to revolve perpendicular to its solar orbital plane. In January 1986, the unmanned American spacecraft Traveling 2 visited the planet, discovering 10 moons additional to the five already known, and a system of weak rings around the gas giant.
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