Analysis of the Planet Uranus

Analysis of the Planet Uranus Our planet Uranus. Uranus is the seventh planet of our solar system. Uranus is the mysterious blue planet that circles the sun, far from the Earth. A man named William Herschel first discovered this mysterious planet in 1781, he was a German musician living in England who had a great interest in Astronomy. He believed the sky held secrets he wanted to know. He couldn’t afford to buy a big telescope, so he made his own. One night in March 1781, Herschel was studying constellations of Gemini. He spotted by accident a blue-green dot. He studied it for several nights and he realized that it was moving very slowly across the sky. Herschel believed that he found a new comet. As the word of his discovery spread, professional astronomers measured the distance to the object and decided it was too far away to be a comet. It must be a planet instead. The new planet was twice as far from the sun as Saturn. This mysterious planet got its name from the tradition held. Like the six other planets, it was named for a god in Greek mythology. So it was named after the goddess that gives life. Because it orbited just beyond

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Saturn and was named Uranus for the god of the sky who furthered Saturn. Uranus is the third largest planet in our solar system. It is huge compared to Earth. Its diameter is 31,764 miles, which makes it about four times the size of Earth. Like all the other giant planets in out solar system, Uranus is made of a swirl of gases, liquids and solids. It has no solid surface to stand on. The solids are mostly silicon, iron, and basalt like rock. The center of Uranus is a solid core about the size of Earth. At the outer edge of the core, are the solid elements mix with the great ocean that surrounds the rocky heart of the planet. This ocean is about 5,000 miles deep. The deepest parts of the Earths oceans are only about seven miles deep. Scientists think Uranus’ ocean is mostly water mixed with a bit of liquid ammonia and methane. The thing that we thought was amazing was about Uranus’ oceans; they are extremely hot, as hot as 8,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Scientists think icy comets that got caught and absorbed by Uranus formed the ocean. The force of the comets hitting Uranus was so great it caused them to melt. The atmosphere of Uranus is made up mainly of hydrogen and helium gases, with a small amount of methane. The methane gives Uranus its green-blue color. That’s because methane absorbs most of the sunlight’s colors, leaving a bluish-green light to reflect back into space. The upper atmosphere is cloudy and very active or turbulent. Strong winds blow the blue-green gas around the planet. Near the planets equator, winds have been clocked at speeds of nearly 650 miles per hour. Around Uranus’ south pole the atmosphere has an odd appearance. Sunlight is reacting with chemicals there to create what looks like smog. So Uranus is basically a very cloudy atmosphere. The funny thing about Uranus is that the planet is tipped on its side. It does not rotate creating days and nights as each side of the planet turns to and then away from the sun. Instead, it seems almost as though Uranus has fallen over onto its side. The poles are not at the top and the bottom of the planet likes Earths North and South poles but on the sides. Uranus takes 17:25 hours to spin around completely. Scientists think that when Uranus was a young planet it was hit by a large asteroid about the size of Earth and was knocked over onto its side. Now Uranus tilts 98 degrees off center. Uranus is so far from the sun; it takes 84 years to complete one orbit. Each of the four seasons lasts for 21 years on Uranus. The sunlight is dim and cold on Uranus. The average surface temperature is a chilly negative 350 degrees Fahrenheit; there is little difference in surface temperature between the side of the planet facing the sun and the side turning away from it. Uranus does not have an internal heat source. Little heat escapes from it because the atmosphere acts like a blanket holding the heat in the ocean. Uranus also has rings; at least 11 thin dark rings because Uranus rotates on its side the rings have formed circles circling the planet from top to bottom. Uranus’s rings are made up of boulder size chunks of very dark material. The chunks are so dark that they reflect only a tint amount of sunlight that falls on them that’s why they are so difficult to see from Earth. Uranus also has 15 known moons. William Shakespeare names the five previously known moons for characters in the play; they are Oberon, Titania, Umbriel, Ariel, and Miranda. They range from 293 to 982 miles in diameter. The five large moons of Uranus are partly rock and partly ice. They all are cold, dark and gray in color. The moon Miranda is very strange because it appears to have been smashed into large pieces in collision with an asteroid. But instead of breaking up into several new moons, the piece was somehow glued back together. The other moons names are: Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda and Puck. Mostly all of the other moons are made of icy and rocky surfaces. Uranus is 1,870,800,000 miles away from the sun. Uranus is 1,961,000,000 miles away from the Earth. Uranus has the volume of 63 Earths. In other words you can fit 63 Earths in Uranus. Even if Uranus is much larger than the Earth in volume, it is made up of only 14.5 times more material than Earth that means mass. That’s because Earths molecules are packed more tightly than Uranus. Now technological equipment such as telescopes, computers, radio wave receivers, many kinds of cameras, and space probes assist us in getting information and learning more. A spacecraft named Voyager 2; a United States space probe designed and built by an international team of scientists to study the solar system, found out our knowledge about Uranus. It took pictures and measurements of our solar system for years, then sending back radio waves to Earth, with the Voyager, scientist’s computers unlocked secrets of Uranus. They also discovered many new questions.

Peer Reviews

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pictureperfect

28th of Jul 2012

Quality of writing

There is room or improvement in regards to the way in which this essay is laid out, for example there are times where the candidate has not included a space between paragraphs, which can make an essay difficult to follow and there issues in which some paragraphs are too long and some are too short. The general rule relating to paragraphs, is that a new paragraph should be started when you discuss a new fact, that said it can better to put together several shorter bits of information than to have paragraphs which are only one or two sentences long. To avoid issues with the layout of your essay, it can be useful to first write up a plan, this gives you time to think about what you want to say and to think about how the essay will flow. Furthermore, there are several issues with both spelling and grammar, which may have been avoidable if the candidate had taken the time to thoroughly proof read their work, if this is something you struggle with, you could get a parent/guardian or a teacher to look over your work before you submit it.

Level of analysis

The candidate has provided a great deal of information relating to Uranus, therefore they must have taken the time to do some independent research, this is essential when writing a scientific essay, most importantly it allows you to get your facts straight, but more than that, it demonstrates enthusiasm for your subject and it is an important skill, one that is needed for higher education. Furthermore, the additional information this allows you to include in your essay can help make your essay more interesting to read. However, you must make sure that you include references and links to any resources you have used, this is another important skill that you need to learn as it can show steps you have taken in order to prepare for your essay and providing you have written the information in your words, it helps to show that your work is not plagiarised. Finally, the candidate could have improved the way in which this essay ends, when you finish an essay without a conclusion, you leave the reader feeling slightly confused. A conclusion is important for serval reasons, it allows you to restate important points from within your essay, which helps to tie together any lose ends and most importantly this is your chance to leave the reader with a good impression of your work. You can do this by making your closing paragraph interesting, the easiest way to do this is to include a personal opinion/response relating to your topic, this could be what you have learnt from writing your essay or in this case, it could be your opinions on what we have not yet learnt about Uranus, or how what we already know may be useful to us in the future, these are only a few examples, you could explore any other ideas as long as they relate back to the essay topic.

Response to question

The candidate has written a great deal of information relating to the planet Uranus, however their response is fairly basic and there is room for improvement. To begin with, there is no clear introduction to this essay, which is a mistake. You need to write an introduction as this sets the tone for your essay and it gives you a chance to catch he readers attention. Your introduction should clearly state what you plan to discuss and it should include a brief description of your topic, in this case the planet Uranus. You then need to think about engaging the reader which you can do by stating an interesting fact or quote that is relevant to your topic.

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