THE EXPLORATION OF URANUS

Uranus was discovered, almost accidentally, by the British astronomer, William Herschel in March 1781. Initially Herschel identified the object as a star or comet, realising only later that he had discovered a seventh planet.

Most of the data available about Uranus and its moons resulted from the visit by Voyager 2 in January 1986. Voyager was programmed to collect data about Uranus’ rings and to look for ‘shepherd’ moons in the area of the outer rings. As a result, 10 new satellites were discovered. Voyager images showed some features on Uranus’ otherwise bland surface, including faint cloud-like structures in the upper atmosphere and bands that may be evidence of winds.

Voyager 2 pictures of Uranus’ large moons (Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Ariel and Miranda) showed them to have rocky surfaces with varying degrees of cratering and other geological processes. Only partial surface image data could be acquired during the brief period in which Voyager traversed the uranian system. The parts of the surfaces that were photographed show a variety of quite dramatic geological features including 20 kilometre high ice on Titania and extensive fracturing on Ariel.

Spacecraft Launch date Arrival date Mission Voyager 2 20 Aug 1977 24 Jan 1986 Uranus flyby