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The discoverer of Uranus (in 1781) wanted to call it “George’s Star” after King George III (buttering up a patron in 1780s) ... a generation or two later, the name Uranus (from Ouranous, a Roman deity) was adopted — some had advocated it be named after its discoverer herschel, but this did not prevail. I am pretty certain there would be no end of jokes about George’s Star too, so the innocent planet was doomed to be the butt of jokes anyway.

Oddly, and it was not known until well after discovery, Uranus is unlike all the other planets, its rotational axis is in the plane of the solar system so its “seasons” are 21 years long or one quarter of its orbital period of 84 years. We often see it on its side, with its brighter moons circling around rather than moving side to side and periodically disappearing behind the planet as is the case with Jupiter and Saturn. So for most of a 42-year interval we are looking at the south polar region of Uranus and then after a brief interval of looking at its equator at right angles, we start a 42-year interval of looking at its north polar region.

It should also be mentioned that the designation “clouds” should read “brighter clouds” because all we are seeing are clouds, Uranus is an earth-sized solid object enveloped in a huge cloud of methane and other gases about four times as big as the solid interior. Neptune is similar in that regard, and is just a bit more massive.

I discovered something very odd about the masses of the four gas giants. If you add the mass of Uranus to Neptune and call that total one unit, then Saturn represents three units and Jupiter ten units. This is the same ratio as the formula for methane, Ch4 (taking an isotope of carbon, the one used for carbon dating, C=12 is the dominant one).

A hidden signature of the artist-creator, perhaps?