Carolyn Paxton, age 11, of Pittsburgh, Penna., for her question:

How far from the sun is Uranus?

The big planet Uranus is way beyond the orbit of Saturn, more than 19 times further away from the sun than is our warm little earth. Its distance from the sun varies slightly. The average is about 1,783 million miles. The average distance of the earth from the sun is about 93 million miles.

This means that Uranus is a very cold planet, far too cold for any kind of life as we know it. It also means that its orbit is a vast wide circle. The cold lonely planet has a long, long way to go to complete one yearly journey around. the sun. One year on Uranus is equal to about 84 years on earth. However, the big planet spins faster on its axis than does the earth. A day and. night period on Uranus is equal to about 17.24 hours by the clocks on earth. The following are some statistics on Uranus

Uranus Statistics

Planetary Symbol: Name in Roman/Greek Mythology: Uranus/Uranus

Diameter: 51,488 km (32,000 miles) Rotation Period about Axis: 17.24 hrs (retrograde?)

Mass: 86.8x10^24 kilograms (14.5 x Earth's)

Revolution Period about the Sun: 84 years

Density: 1,270 kg/m^3 Tilt of Axis: 98o (or 82o?)

Minimum Distance from Sun: 2.7 billion km (1.7 billion miles)

Surface Gravity: 8.69 m/s^2 (0.89 x Earth's)

Maximum Distance from Sun: 3 billion km (1.87 billion miles)

Temperature at Cloud Tops: -200o C ( -328o F)

Orbital Semi-major Axis: 19.19 AU (Earth=1 AU) Average Cloud Top Temperature (K): 73K

Minimum Distance from Earth: 2.57 billion km(1.6 billion miles)

Satellites/Rings: 27 known moons, faint rings