Uranus orbits our Sun, a star, and is the seventh planet from
the Sun at a distance of about 1.8 billion miles. Uranus takes about 17 hours
to rotate once (a Uranian day), and about 84 Earth years to complete an orbit
of the Sun (a Uranian year). Uranus is an ice giant. Most of its mass is a hot,
dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane and ammonia – above a small rocky core.
Uranus has 27 known moons, and they are named after characters from the works of
William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. Uranus has 13 known rings.
The inner rings are narrow and dark and the outer rings are brightly colored.
Like Venus, Uranus rotates east to west.
But Uranus is unique in that it rotates on its side.