Confirmed for the first time, Uranus's unique aurora could help astronomers determine if other planets could support life. Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries ...

A zoomed-in image of Uranus captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Eleven of the planet's 13 rings are visible, though some are so bright they appear to blend into one ring.

Facebook X Reddit Email Save. A pale blue-green enigma, the planet Uranus has long fascinated astronomers precisely because of its extreme distance, some 1.6 billion miles (2.6 billion km) from Earth.

Uranus is more interesting than previously thought, ... has been thrown into question after reviewing the only mission to venture the 1.8 billion miles to investigate the planet.

Voyager 2 came within about 50,000 miles of Uranus' cloud tops, providing the first-ever close-up views of the planet, its rings and its moons. A NASA image of Uranus taken by Voyager 2 in 1986.

Everyone loves a good Uranus crack—the mere mention of its name can draw snickers in a serious science class. But the sideways planet has a surprisingly respectable backstory that few people ...

Space.com caught up with Hofstadter to discuss what exploration of Uranus — that far-flung, ice giant of a world with a mass roughly 14.5 times that of Earth — can offer. The planet has been ...

A solar wind event squashed the protective bubble around Uranus just before Voyager 2 flew by the planet in 1986, shifting how astronomers understood the mysterious world.

Uranus, the ice giant, may have been misunderstood for nearly 40 years. A rare solar wind event was taking place when NASA’s Voyager 2 zipped by in 1986, a study suggests, which affected what we ...