21st January 2021, My Only Sketch Of Uranus
I only saw Uranus and sketched it once with my telescope, it’s far further out than Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, which you can just spot with the naked eye first and then train the telescope on it. But I find with Uranus there’s a bit of luck involved, you just have to wait for it to be in a part of the sky where it’s obvious where it is in relation to a constellation, and that’s why I’ve only seen it once. I can’t say I saw much detail, but nevertheless I was surprised that it looked like a globe as opposed to a vague dot, it felt as if I could see that it was a planet as opposed to a “vague space thing.”
I have sketched every planet except Neptune, which I have seen but not sketched because cloud rolled in suddenly, and Mercury I have just seen with the naked eye, Mercury being dangerous to view because it’s so close to the sun. I will probably sketch Neptune at some point, during a long clear night when it’s in a part of the sky when it’s easy to find. Mercury, I don’t know about Mercury, it’s so close to the sun it seems like too big of a risk.
I think it’s apt that I’ve only ever managed to see and sketch Uranus once, because humanity has only visited Uranus once. Even Mercury has been visited twice, and that one’s hard to get to. The hellscape Venus has gotten many probes sent to it, Jupiter and Saturn have had many spacecraft sent their way, and Mars has had a lot of flybys, orbiters, rovers and even a helicopter! But the two odd ones out are Uranus and Neptune, which were only visited once, by Voyager 2.
Now to talk about what was mentioned in the title of this post. Uranus is at a really, really mad angle.
Uranus has a tilt 0f 97.77 degrees, believed to be because of a collision with an Earth sized object many years ago. Even with Earth’s much more modest tilt, you are talking about a few months of constant daylight up in the most northern parts of the world, such as on the island of Longyearbyen. But on Uranus, because of the angle, you are not talking about this effect on the most northern parts of the planet, or the most southern six months later, like on Earth, you are talking about constant daylight for about one half of the planet. Oh, and Uranus’s year is 84 Earth years long.
Do you remember being 21? I remember it well, I remember being extremely angry all the time, that was not a good time for me, but anyway. Let’s say you were born on Uranus (which is impossible because there’s no ground and you’d die and stuff but just go with it). If you were born when night time began, and remained on that part of the planet your entire life, you would not see the sun until you were 21! Likewise, if you lived on the opposite side of the planet, at this age would be the first time you would ever see the darkness of night. Uranus has 21 year daylight, or 21 year darkness, depending on which side of the planet you are on.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/uranus/in-depth/#otp_orbit_and_rotation
Uranus’s moon Miranda has a cliff called Verona Rupes, which is the tallest known cliff in the solar system. It was discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986. With Miranda’s low gravity, it would take twelve minutes to fall from the top. So it would be interesting to visit Miranda and experience, falling, very, slowly.
So why has this kick ass planet only been visited once? I mean, Mars has multiple cars and even a helicopter at this point, it’s like the V.I.P planet! Well, we’re lucky we got even this one trip to Uranus, and also Neptune, and it was because of a rare planetary alignment.
Every 175 years Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are lined up in such a way that it is possible to reach all of them in a relatively short amount of time with a relatively low amount of fuel.
I think if not for this alignment it’s entirely possible we would still today not have gotten to visit Uranus or Neptune. I think probes to Jupiter or Saturn are easier to justify because those planets are so iconic, Jupiter’s got the giant red spot, Saturn’s got the rings, but Uranus and Neptune always seemed less glamorous than the first two. So it seemed the only way we could get a mission to Uranus or Neptune, is if it was a mission to all four of the outer planets, relatively cheap.
So, will we meet Uranus again? The next alignment isn’t until the 2160’s, so I would assume there’ll be another journey meeting all four outer planets then, unless humanity has lost interest in space exploration by then or humanity has climate changed the ever loving shit out of itself. But China is planning a mission to Jupiter and Uranus in the 2030’s.:
https://www.space.com/china-probes-jupiter-uranus-same-launch
So, it will take a bit of time, but it looks like Uranus, the planet with the extremely mad angle, is one we will meet again.
Ponderings Of An Autist 