Civil War

Civil War Notes

By Madison Nef

Upon first inspection, it would appear that the North had a clear upper hand with many advantages in almost every category to secure a victory against the South. The writings from this time period have been extremely helpful today in identifying how things were, and most of them claimed that the South was fighting a glorious but rather pointless and failing battle for an independence that would never exist.

To be honest, important resources were just about equally split between both of the sides. In this lecture, we got a bit of an in-depth look at these resources and the point that the battle’s fate was not predetermined was the main lesson to be learned. Below, I’ve gone through some of these strong points for each side; AND given a little about what happened.

The North

*The North almost lost TWICE just due to the Confederacy trying to convince them that the battle they were fighting was too costly, both in human lives AND money.  

·        More manpower, with a 5:2 ratio compared to the South. The North had a population of 22.5 million, which was gigantic compared to the South’s 9.1 million; 3.5 million of which were black… and of those 3.5 million, only about 130,000 were free. The North called upon their large population, especially on both white and black males who had never supported slavery to begin with.

·        A bigger economy was also to the North’s advantage. 110,000 businesses that employed 1.3 million people was what the North had- compared to the South’s decreasing 18,000 businesses that employed roughly 100,000 workers. This meant that the North had more businesses running… than the North had working in the businesses they owned.

·        The North ALSO controlled far more of the railroads, if you remember from an earlier report. This was a GIGANTIC advantage- they owned about 22 thousand miles worth of track, while the Confederacy only had about 9 thousand. Due to such easy access to fast transportation, trading and production of goods in the North flourished with the sales of iron, ships, textiles, animals, and weapons that the South could not compete with.

·        Finally, the North had a large professional army and navy to start the war with… though this did not prove as useful as you may think. The US army itself had a grand total of 15,000 fighters, and these were spread out across the continent… most were to the west of Mississippi. The Navy had only 42 working vessels, and even so was not much help as they were not trained for riverside fighting.

The South

*The South was clearly the weaker force in the battle, yet still believed they could win simply by debunking their enemies’ morals.

·        Being defensive of their own turf served as an advantage for the South due to the fact that the side protecting its home was often perceived as the more dedicated and motivated side.

·        Geography was also helpful. The size of the Confederacy ranged about 750,000 miles with 3,500 of those being coastline. This posed as both a threat AND a problem to the US army. It also helped that the Confederates knew their own roads and trails a LOT better than the North- by staying inside their own bounds, they also got rid of the risk of getting lost.

·        Access to the South was easy- at least by boat; which was good since the US Navy weren’t very skilled with smaller bodies of water. More than 200 mouths of rivers and bays gave complete access to the South, but it was relatively safe. The Appalachian mountains also stood in the way of the North- quite a discouraging trip.

·        After the mountains came the Shenandoah Valley- which was good shelter and good for enclosed military action.

·        Finally, the LACK of transportation in the South also served as an advantage because it confused the US army some and it was harder for them to move as fast as they were used to.

So you see, both sides had their own advantages. In this lecture, the disadvantages were not discussed… but I personally can’t wait to see what inconvenienced these armies too. In the next lecture, all the disadvantages will be discussed and then I’ll add them on as a ‘Part 2’ to this paper.

I think what surprised me most was the fact that the lack of transportation served the South as an advantage. I mean; it makes sense when you think about it… but looking at it from the side that had access to easy transportation, they probably only saw it as a disadvantage, not realizing that it slowed them down considerably. I guess it just goes to show that the quickest route… is not always the best one.

~Maddie

Civil War Notes

Civil War Notes

By Madison Nef

In the time that was lodged in between the war and the secession, the US and the Confederacy both “fought” for the support (and control over) the eight remaining slave states in the Union. While the president at the time (James Buchanan) wanted to appease everyone, INCLUDING the slaveholders through many different deals and empty compromises, Republicans grounded themselves and would not change their outlook. They wanted a complete ban on slavery.

Buchanan didn’t see the secession for what it was, and intended to continue enforcing laws; stating so. He suggested that a correction be made in the constitution in its laws that would protect slavery and abolish the ‘personal liberty’ laws of the North. Said laws were very important to the North, as they were the northern states’ response and rebellion to slavery. Buchanan even went as far as to suggest trying to take over Cuba and use it as a slave state in its own right.

If you think Buchanan’s offer was generous, just wait until you hear this. Often regarded as one of the most famous compromises regarding territorial rights in history, Senator John Crittenden from Kentucky sided with the South (in case you’ve forgotten; the slaveholders). He went as far as to fight for slave-holding rights to be legal in all territories below 36-30 degrees. Republicans fought viciously to keep this bill from passing and won twice, and since both sides were so disagreeable; the thought of a compromise was pushed aside.

Lincoln had been treading very lightly around this issue even before his election. He was silent as he succeeded Buchanan in 1861; believing that the south would work itself out and that Unionists would deal with the problem and whip the south into shape. The way he had things set up for himself, any fighting would be automatically dropped on the head of the Confederates and he wouldn’t have to deal with it. He believed that the Fed government would run and govern the entire country; including the south… stating that he “would not use force, but would enforce the laws”.

But let’s get to the point of what my lecture was about, shall we? This lecture’s center point was the story of Fort Sumter; which was located in the Charleston Harbor. Now, this fort was the source of the crisis that sprung forth, mainly for where it stood. Those in the North saw it as US property since it was the US that installed it, and wanted it claimed as their own. On the other hand; Confederates complained that is was on South Carolina soil and was therefore rightfully the South’s.

Lincoln made a poor decision to restock the fort in April of 1861, when this debate was not yet settled… and it drew forth an extremely aggressive response from Davis and his government. Davis’ troops shot at and captured the fort quite easily, which led Lincoln to call in over 75,000 volunteers to give their lives over and fight this surprising rebellion. This nightmarish chain reaction led to Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas and Tennessee joining the Confederate side.

Let’s do a recap… since this is what essentially led up to the start of the war.

It all began when Lincoln thought it would be a WONDERFUL idea to re-equip the fort with an un-armed vessel. Buchanan had attempted to do this during his presidency, but had failed. Since then, Fort Sumter had become a beacon for both the Union AND the Confederacy.

On March 5^th of 1861, Lincoln made a SERIOUSLY bad decision. The commanding officer at Sumter had sent Lincoln a message letting him know that he was running out of provisions. When Lincoln decided to restock the fort, he went against the advice- and general opinion- of many of the people who advised him, including William Seward and General Winfield Scott. Despite this, Lincoln still believed that the northerners wanted to hold onto the fort (which wasn’t entirely wrong).

Upon finding this out, Davis’ government replied with a bombardment and attacking the fort viciously. While it may have seemed that Davis had the upper hand in all of this, all is not as it seemed… Davis had faced a choice of many bad decisions to begin with. He didn’t particularly want to be viewed as the bad guy in any of the commotion taking place, so he tried to ask the fort to surrender. However; this failed and the popular opinion of the Confederacy was to sack and overtake the fort… and on April 15, Davis could no longer withhold the army and they rampaged the fort for over 36 hours.

News of this rebellion spread like wildfire during that time, sparking many different (and clashing) opinions in both the north and south. Finally, Lincoln called in 75,000 volunteers to end the rebellion.

It was because of this call that the upper south withdrew from the Union. After everything that had gone on, 4 of the upper states (all are mentioned above) decided that they would rather secede and join the Confederacy than force their own people to go out and fight against a cause they seemed to support. The public opinion about the secession had been rather garbled in these states to begin with, but the call for help from Lincoln was enough to turn all against him.

The secession of these states made it considerably harder to reunite the Union… now, 11 states had sided with the Confederacy and the future seemed rather bleak.  The four states that left the Union were now supplying MANY more soldiers- good soldiers- to the Confederacy, and it also contained most of the important industrial and agricultural resources. To signify the importance of Virginia, the capital of these states was moved from Montgomery to Richmond VA- where over 40% of the South’s manufacturing took place.

As this lecture came to a close, I couldn’t help but wonder what would come next. This chapter in history really captured my attention… but the rest is for next time.

~Maddie

Civil War

Civil War Notes

By Madison Nef

Picking up where my last section of notes left off- most Southerners began to view the Republican’s election victory as a huge triumph for those in the North who wanted to abolish slavery, slave trading etc. This held especially true for seven of the “Deep” southern states: South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas and Florida. Pro-secessionist colonies quickly formed in these states, and by December of 1860, the lower states began to pass ordinances of secession.

-          ~Delegates sent to a convention in Montgomery

-          ~Constitution written and government established for a new nation

-          ``~“Confederate States of America”

These “Confederate States” began to model themselves and build up on what the states had already built, calling themselves the rightful successors and promoting themselves as better than the original states. The Confederate leaders of these states chose well-balanced leaders, and then began conversing with the only 8 slave-holder states left in the country: Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia; asking them to join them.

This initial phase of succession represented a large but risky step for the Lower South in protecting slavery rights- it was largely frowned upon and many of the polls guaranteed defeat, calling it an attempt to “undermine the economic and social bases of their society”.

The Montgomery Convention

The convention was held in early February of 1861. It was at this convention that the Confederate States were born. As mentioned above, the Confederate States ripped off most of what they were from the original states- in fact, the only key difference was the laws and opinions about slavery!

The Confederates elected Jefferson Davies of Mississippi as their President, but decided to not make any large decisions that could affect the chances they had at bringing over the remaining 8 slave-holding states to their side. However, they did make it clear that they would not allow African slave trading. Their constitution, while it did not support trading, DID explicitly protect slavery as a business.

I wanted to take a moment and go through some of the key... groups, I guess, that took a large part in the events of the secession.

Immediate secessionists were often times Breckenridge supporters. These people wanted each state to act immediately and believed that the best course of action was to cut all ties from the Union and the other states. They thought that by doing so, it would promote a new type of independence, safety, and southern unity. Immediate secessionists had good allies in the lower south, and drew a lot of support.

Cooperationists were mostly supporters of Bell, with a small percentage supporting Douglas. This means they were comprised of mainly former democrats. That aside, they differed from immediate secessionists because they recognized that the South was in great danger and knew that they would be forced to provide strong guarantees to protect their rights and slavery if Georgia stayed with the Union and did not join them.

Cooperationists figured the best way to handle things would be to hold conventions in the 8 upper South states, and use farming prospects to convince them to leave the Union. However, with the secession of more than half of the nearby states without any conventions; the cooperationists seemed rather defeated and were no where near as active with campaigning as the immediate secessionists were.

Unionists typically lived in the Upper South and the border states. They were anti-secession and refused to give help to the Confederacy. During the war, unionists offered full support to the Union. Now; don’t get the title garbled. There were two types of unionists- the type of unionist who supported the Union simply for its ideals, and the type of unionist who simply stood by the Union as a defiance to slavery. Most unionists were as much against the war as they were against slavery.

Unionists (including Lincoln) also wrongly believed that Cooperationists were anti-secession and expected a backlash that never came in the south against the sentiments of the secession.

All southerners had different opinions about what Montgomery represented. Some thought it was a revolutionary response to Lincoln’s election; while others thought it was purely legal. Initially, it was compared to the American Revolution of the past century and most thought that it was an attempt to throw off the central force of power.

While the hope had been for a nice, peaceful separation of the states; the Confederacy took to force and military action multiple times. They overtook Federal forts and raided the arsenal, activated the militia, and authorized a large army of over 100,000 men. At the time this was seen as a large problem, but later arguments insisted that the Lower South had acted legally and that what they did was fine because it complied with the Constitution’s law about state sovereignty.

Secession is impossible to separate from the institution of slavery. The Low South accepted and loved the secession, seeing it as a way to drive away northerners and their attempts to get rid of slavery. The biggest fear of the Southerners was losing all they had worked for to northerners... but we’ll focus on that NEXT TIME.

I hope you enjoyed this paper and learned something useful. I know I did.

~Maddie

Civil War Notes

Civil War Notes

By Madison Nef

Picking up where my last section of notes left off- most Southerners began to view the Republican’s election victory as a huge triumph for those in the North who wanted to abolish slavery, slave trading etc. This held especially true for seven of the “Deep” southern states: South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas and Florida. Pro-secessionist colonies quickly formed in these states, and by December of 1860, the lower states began to pass ordinances of secession.

-          -Delegates sent to a convention in Montgomery

-          -Constitution written and government established for a new nation

-          -“Confederate States of America”

These “Confederate States” began to model themselves and build up on what the states had already built, calling themselves the rightful successors and promoting themselves as better than the original states. The Confederate leaders of these states chose well-balanced leaders, and then began conversing with the only 8 slave-holder states left in the country: Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia; asking them to join them.

This initial phase of succession represented a large but risky step for the Lower South in protecting slavery rights- it was largely frowned upon and many of the polls guaranteed defeat, calling it an attempt to “undermine the economic and social bases of their society”.

Solar System

The Galaxies, The Stars and The Sun

By Madison Nef

The Sun

The sun is the largest star in the galaxy that is currently known. It is in the center of the Solar System, and all planets in our Solar System revolve around it. Compared to the planets, the sun is extremely large- to the point that it takes up 99.86% of the system’s mass. The sun is 865,000 miles wide, which makes it 110 times wider than the Earth… and Earth isn’t even the largest planet! No wonder. 74% of the sun’s mass is hydrogen. Helium makes up roughly 24%, and a combination of the heavier elements (oxygen, carbon, iron and neon) make up the remaining percentages.

The sun is also extremely hot, if you were stupid enough to not know. However, I bet you didn’t know EXACTLY how hot it is! It’s 5,500 degrees Celsius on the surface, with its core being a whopping 13,600,000 degrees Celsius!   

It also generates a large amount of energy by combining large amounts of hydrogen nuclei into helium. This is called nuclear fusion… also; because of the sun’s huge impact on the Earth, many ancient cultures thought or portrayed the sun as a deity or a god. Some famous examples of this are Ra, the Egyptian sun god and Tonatiuh, the Aztec sun god.

The Stars

What even is a star? Do you ever wonder this..? I do. A star is actually a large sphere of hot gas, known as plasma, that is being held together by its own gravity. Stars radiate energy created by nuclear fusion, much like a smaller-scale version of the sun (since the sun is just a gigantic star). This creates helium. As a star begins to die (yes, they die), it changes the helium slowly into heavier chemical elements like carbon and oxygen. When this happens, the star changes drastically in color, density and size, resulting in its death.

The sun is closest to the Earth, and is known as a “G2 yellow dwarf star”. Boy, if they think the sun is a dwarf star… I’d hate to see what they mean by a big star! Anyway, besides the sun, the nearest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It’s 4.2 light years away… meaning that light from that star would take 4.2 years to reach Earth from where it is located. Even using the fastest and most efficient technology known today, it would take roughly 75 thousand years to get there.

Each galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars… and there are estimated to be hundreds of billions of GALAXIES. Agh, inception! In the Milky Way alone, there are well over 400 billion stars… and that’s what we KNOW of. In the entire universe, there is estimated to be about somewhere from 70-300 sextillion stars. Most of these stars have lifespans of 1-10 billion years; depending… and some appear to be the age of the Universe (observed) itself- 13.8 billion years old.

The Galaxies

Let’s finish up with galaxies- a galaxy is a large group of stars, star clusters, gas and dust that is all held together by gravity. The only thing that separates galaxies from being one gigantic star is the dark matter that is also mixed it. The word is derived from the Greek word for ‘milky’; which is thought to be a reference to the Milky Way.

Most galaxies are gigantic, and average size is somewhere between 10 million (which is considered small) and 100 trillion (which is considered large). There are an estimated 170 billion+ galaxies in our universe- putting the number of stars at over 100 sextillion.

While galaxies are quite similar in many ways, there ARE some variations. There are many different shaped galaxies, the two most popular and most prominent being elliptical and spiral.

Elliptical galaxies are shaped like a disk, and because of this are typically larger and are usually very old. They also have less gas and dust, lowering the creation rate of new stars within them.

Spiral galaxies are stereotypical galaxies- rotating flattened disks with at least two spirals of new stars roping out from the center hold of older stars. The heavy molecular clouds of hydrogen allow a LOT of star formation… hence their often large and never-ending appearance.

Well- that’s about it! I hoped you learned something about our Solar System- I know I did.

~Maddie

The Civil War (1)

The Civil War: Part 1

By Madison Nef

The Differences Between the North and the South

The Civil War that raged across the nation from 1861 to 1865 was the violent conclusion to decades of disputes… Gradually, throughout the beginning of the nineteenth century, the North and South sides of the US followed different paths, developing into two distinct and very different regions- despite still being part of the same nation. Below, I’d like to summarize a bit about the North and the South… you can pick apart the key differences for yourself.

North

The northern soil and climate favored smaller farmsteads rather than large plantations, as found in the South. Industry flourished, fueled by more abundant natural resources than in the South, and many large cities were established. Of these cities, New York was the largest with over 800,000 inhabitants… a gigantic number for those times and the resources they had. By 1860, roughly 25% of all Northerners lived in urban areas.

 Between 1800 and 1860, the percentage of laborers working in agricultural pursuits dropped drastically from 70% to only 40%. Slavery had died out in this side of the country, replaced in the cities and factories by immigrant labor from Europe. In fact; an overwhelming majority of immigrants, seven out of every eight, settled in the North rather than the South. Transportation was far easier in the North, since the North controlled more than two thirds of the railroad tracks in the entire country. This gave the North the upper hand, especially since the economy just seemed to keep growing.

A lot more Northerners than Southerners belonged to the Whig/Republican political party; and they were far more likely to have careers in business, medicine, or education. In fact, an engineer was six times as likely to be from the North as from the South. Northern children were slightly more prone to attend school than Southern children as well, due to this lifestyle influence.

South

The fertile soil and warm climate of the South made it ideal for large farms and crops like tobacco and cotton. Because agriculture was so profitable, few Southerners saw a need for industrial development and thus there were not many factories. Eighty percent of the labor force worked on the farm. Although two-thirds of Southerners owned no slaves at all, by 1860 the South's "peculiar institution" was closely linked to the region's economy and culture. In fact, there were almost as many blacks - but slaves and free - in the South as there were whites; the population consisting of about 4 million blacks and 5.5 million whites. There were no large cities aside from New Orleans, and most of the ones that did exist were located on rivers and coasts and were used as shipping ports to send agricultural produce to European or Northern destinations.

Only 10% of Southerners lived in urban areas… and transportation between these cities was difficult, except by water.  Only 35% of the nation's train tracks were located in the South (as mentioned earlier, the North mainly controlled the train tracks). Also, in 1860, the South's agricultural economy was beginning to stall while the Northern manufacturers were experiencing a large growth and want for material.

A slightly smaller percentage of white Southerners were literate than their Northern counterparts, and Southern children tended to spend less time in school. As adults, Southern men tended to belong to the Democratic political party and gravitated toward military careers as well as the farming and agriculture that was general for the area and time; and for the economy they were dealing with.

Asteroid Belt

All About the Asteroid Belt

By Madison Nef

What is the asteroid belt?

Almost all asteroids in the solar system are found in a region of the solar system out beyond Mars. These asteroids form the Asteroid Belt. Others orbit in near-Earth space; and a few migrate or are thrown out to the outer solar system by different gravitational pulls. The four largest asteroids currently in the belt are Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea. They contain more than half the mass of the entire belt! The rest of the mass is contained in many other much smaller asteroids. There was a theory once that if you combined all the asteroids; they would make up the missing “Fifth” rocky planet. Planetary scientists estimate that if you could put all that material together that exists there today, it would make a tiny world- smaller than Earth’s moon.

The belt is located in an area of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. That places it between 2.2 and 3.2 AU from the Sun. The belt is about 1 AU thick, and the average distance between objects in the belt is quite large. If you could stand on an asteroid and look around, the next one would be too far away to see.

The solar system contains many different types of asteroids, grouped by the minerals they contain. The abundances of precious metals such as nickel, iron, titanium; and water make asteroids an attractive target for mining operations when humans decide to expand their presence through interplanetary space. For example, water from asteroids could serve colonies in space, while the minerals and metals would be used to build habitats and grow food for future space colony inhabitants. Beginning 2013, companies interested in asteroid mining began announcing their plans for future operations on distant asteroids. In addition, NASA is looking into similar missions. The biggest obstacles to asteroid mining are the need to develop affordable spaceflight technology that would allow people to actually reach the asteroids.

Random facts about the belt

·        The asteroids in the belt are mainly comprised of rock and stone, and most are solid. However, a few are just small floating piles of rubble.

·        The belt contains many millions of asteroids.

·        Only a few of these asteroids are large- most are just the size of pebbles.

·        The asteroid Ceres is also designated as a dwarf planet, the largest one in the inner solar system.

·        We know of at least 7,000 asteroids.

·        The belt may contain many objects, but they are spread out over a huge area of space (like I said above). This has allowed spacecraft to move through the belt without hitting anything.

·        The Asteroid Belt is often referred to as the “Main Belt” to distinguish it from other groups of asteroids; such as the Lagrangians and Centaurs.

All About Pluto

All About Pluto

By Madison Nef

Pluto was first seen by use of a telescope in 1930.  Like Uranus and Neptune, Pluto cannot be seen by the naked eye and its existence was not known to the ancient world. In 1930, the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in the Lowell Observatory was heralded as the discovery of the “ninth planet”. Even then, though… many astronomers did not agree or believe that Pluto had been discovered or that is should even be considered a planet.

In 2005 another possible planet, Eris, was found beyond Neptune, the eighth planet and since then 2 further small planet-like bodies have been discovered. These “planets” are not like any of the other planets in the Solar system. The reason for this is how they orbit the Sun. The first eight planets orbit the Sun in a path that they have cleared of all objects throughout time. Pluto, on the other hand, orbits the sun in a zone which is full of other objects that often pass between Pluto and the Sun. Since the planet was only discovered in 1930 and it takes 249 years to orbit the Sun, a full orbit has not been observed.

The first eight planets orbit the Sun while keeping the same distance from the Sun.  The Earth is always 93 million miles, one Astronomical Unit, from the Sun.  Pluto, however, orbits in an ellipse, an oval shape which means its distance from the Sun varies constantly.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union agreed that these “planets” should be called “dwarf planets”. However, sizing had nothing to do with this decision- it’s all about the orbit. Of the nine planets (at least, nine when Pluto was planet), Pluto was the 2^nd smallest. Well… likely. Many argue that Pluto is slightly larger than Mercury, but it is not confirmed.

We know very little about Pluto.  NASA has sent the unmanned spacecraft ‘New Horizons’ to Pluto. While New Horizons left the Earth in 2005, it didn’t reach Pluto until 2015. It takes Pluto a staggering 248½ years to complete its orbit round the Sun.  The Earth takes one year (or 365 days).

Like all the other planets, Pluto turns on its own axis as it orbits round the sun.  Pluto takes about 6½ days to turn on its axis.  The Earth takes 24 hours, one day.

Since Pluto was the Roman God of the Underworld, and the planet was named after him… the planet’s main moon is named Charon after the ferryman who carries the dead souls across the River Styx into the Underworld. Pluto is known to have five moons. These moons are also named along the same lines- Charon being the largest, followed by Hydra, Nix, Styx and Kerberos.

Charon is mutually tidally locked to Pluto, and is so large that it is often considered a double-planet (or a double dwarf planet).

And there you have it! That wraps up this paper about Pluto- I hope you learned something. I know I did! Who would have known that Pluto hasn’t even made a full orbit of the sun since its discovery?

I’ll leave this here.

Maddie 

All About Uranus

All About Uranus

By Madison Nef

Uranus cannot be seen from the Earth without a telescope- the seventh planet from the Sun, it was not known in ancient times; unlike the planets from Mercury to Saturn. Uranus was first seen by William Herschel in 1781 during a survey of the sky using a telescope. In 1782, George III appointed Herschel as Astronomer Royal due to this discovery.

William Herschel was born in Hanover, Germany.  He moved to England in 1757 in order to follow a career as a musician but after buying a book on astronomy he became interested only in watching the sky. Herschel ALSO discovered 2 of Uranus’ moons with a larger telescope; after its initial discovery.

Uranus has a total of 27 moons, most of which are named after characters in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. The five major moons are called Titania, Oberon, Miranda, Ariel and Umbriel. Umbriel is not from Shakespeare; but is the “melancholy sprite” in a poem by Alexander Pope.

Uranus is one of the “gas giants”, the four outer planets which are entirely composed of gas, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. However, it is the smallest of the four “giants”. Even so, is still several times larger than the Earth.  It has a diameter of 29297 miles, compared to the Earth’s diameter of just less than 8000 miles.

Getting back to the gas that Uranus is made of; most of the center of Uranus is a frozen mass of ammonia and methane, which gives it the blue-green color.  The atmosphere also contains small amounts of hydrogen and helium.

In 1977, Uranus passed in front of a star and astronomers observing the planet through giant telescopes saw nine rings around the planet.  These rings are very faint and not easily seen, unlike the rings around Saturn. Photographs, sent back by the Voyager spacecraft in the 1980’s showed two more rings around the planet.

The Hubble Space telescope then found two more very faint rings, very distant from the planet, between 2003 and 2005, so we now know of a total of 13 rings. Scientists do not yet understand exactly what causes these rings, or exactly what they consist of.

Uranus orbits the Sun lying on its side; and takes 84 years to complete one orbit.  The Earth goes round the Sun in 365 days, one year. Because Uranus is lying on its side as it orbits the sun, for nearly an entire quarter of its orbit one pole of the planet is in complete darkness.

Uranus takes 17.9 hours to turn once on its own axis, faster than the Earth, which takes 24 hours and gives us the change from day to night. From the time when Uranus was first observed; scientists noticed that at certain points in Uranus’ orbit the planet was being pulled further out into space. In the 19th century, certain astronomers worked out that this must be because of the pull of gravity from another planet beyond Uranus. By making mathematical calculations based on the observations of Uranus, two astronomers Adams and Le Verrier identified where this other planet must be. The planet which was exerting a gravitational pull on Uranus was Neptune- considerably further out in space.

I hope you learned something about Uranus from this paper! I know I did. Who would have guessed that its moons were named after Shakespeare characters?

Anyway, I’ll leave this paper here.

Maddie