No laughing, but Uranus is going to be huge next week | Tech News

Stargazers rejoice – we’re going to get a spectacular view of Uranus on Monday as it lines up perfectly with Earth.

While the mysterious ice giant should be visible to the naked eye on a clear night, a basic pair of binoculars or telescope will enhance the view.

But why is Uranus so massive right now?

The answer is a phenomenon known as opposition.

Due to the fact that Earth orbits the Sun much quicker than the planets further out to space, almost every year there is a point at which it flies directly between the Sun and a neighbouring planet. Mars is the exception – because it is so much closer to Earth, this meeting only happens once every 27 months.

However, for Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, Earth ‘catches up’ with them on its journey around the Sun. This is also the point at which the two planets are closest to each other, setting up some fantastic views – it looks extra bright because the Sun’s light is reflected straight back towards us.

Eagle-eyed stargazers may have noticed Jupiter is particularly bright in the sky right now – it hit opposition on November 3. On this day, Jupiter was around 367 million miles from Earth. At its furthest, the gas giant is 601 million miles away.

Next week, when Uranus looms into opposition, it will be around 1.6 billion miles from Earth.

That’s still pretty far, but lucky Uranus is quite big – it’s about four times as wide as our planet, which will help those hoping to catch a glimpse of it.

To see it, Nasa says: ‘Look overhead just after midnight on November 13. Uranus will lie about halfway between the brilliant planet Jupiter and the diffuse glow of the Pleiades star cluster (M45).

‘While Uranus may look like a bright blinking star in the night sky, its blue-green hue gives aways its identity. Binoculars or a telescope will improve the view.’

There are many weird and wonderful things about Uranus. It is the only planet that rotates at a right angle to its orbit – imagine pointing the North Pole at the Sun and you get the idea. This means the dark side of the planet is plunged into a 21-year-long winter as Uranus makes its long journey around the Sun.

This also means its two sets of dazzling rings are vertical, rather than horizontal as seen on Saturn.

Uranus also spins in the opposite direction to all the other planets except Venus.

And although known as an ice giant, the inside of Uranus is actually very hot. Almost all of the planet is made up of a hot dense fluid of ‘icy’ materials including water and methane which swirl around a small rocky core – here the interior reaches almost 5,000C.

On the surface however life is very cold given the planet is so far from the Sun. It takes 84 Earth years for the planet to complete one orbit – yet one of its sideways days only lasts 17 hours and 14 minutes, so it is spinning much faster than us.

MORE : Nasa plans to study Uranus ‘from behind’ – and it needs your help

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