Apr
15
URANUS
That’s right! Today we’re going to talk about Uranus. Now quit your giggling and focus! This will be a serious discussion of your anus Uranus.
Greek Mythology
So you guys know how Zeus is the father of all the other gods, right? Wrong. Kronos was Zeus’ father. So Kronos was the father of all the other gods, right? Wrong again! Man, you suck at this game. Uranus was Kronos’ father. Uranus, considered Father Sky, got it on with Gaia, considered Mother Earth, and made lots of babies which were divided into three groups: the Titans (your average gods), the Hecatonchires (one-hundred armed), and the Cyclops (one-eyed). Gaia eventually turned on Uranus (like all women do) and had their son Kronos (one of the Titans) kill Uranus, which he did by castrating him and casting his testicles into the sea. Then a little kid with a wiffleball bat came and hit Uranus over the head. Okay fine, I made up that last part, but it seemed fitting. I mean, what other humiliation must a man named Uranus endure besides having his balls cut off?
Uranus is enormous!
Not only is Uranus an unfortunately-named god, it is also the unfortunately-named seventh planet from the Sun. It’s the third largest (behind Jupiter and Saturn) and fourth most massive (behind Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune) planet in the Solar System.
QUESTION: Based on the information above, is Uranus more dense or less dense than Neptune?
IF YOU ANSWERED:
MORE DENSE: No, you moron! Larger volume and less mass makes Uranus less denser than Neptune! Geez! Don’t you know anything? How could anyone be so stupid? Why don’t you just kill yourself?!
LESS DENSE: What do you want? A medal? It was a simple question! Douchebag.
Uranus was discovered in the shower. Okay fine, enough with the Uranus jokes. Uranus was discovered on March 13, 1781 by Sir William Herschel. Uranus was the first planet discovered in what can be considered modern times using modern equipment. Although it’s visible to the naked eye, it was not classified as a planet by ancient astronomers due to it’s dimness. Herschel named the planet “Georgium Sidus” after the King of England at the time, King George III. The Berlin astronomer Johann Elert Bode later named the new planet Uranus. He thought since in Greek mythology, Saturn is the father of Jupiter, the new planet should be named after the father of Saturn since it follows the planets outward progression.
Like the other gas planets, Uranus is composed of mostly hydrogen and helium, but it also has a high percentage of atmospheric ices such as water, ammonia, and methane (cow farts), and is considered an “ice giant”, with the lowest atmospheric temperatures in the Solar System, reaching as low as -371° Fahrenheit (-224° Celsius). Uranus also has 27 moons that are all named after characters from the works of (the highly over-rated) Shakespeare and Alexander Pope (who?), unlike most of the other moons in the Solar System which are given names from antiquity.
What makes Uranus so special?
Uranus is the only planet in the Solar System that’s rotational axis is on its side, rather than up and down, so Uranus rotates like a rolling ball rather than a spinning top. This also means that Uranus’ rings (it has thirteen of them) are vertical, rather than horizontal, giving the planet a bullseye appearance when viewed head on. Now ask me how hard it is not to make an Uranus joke when I just used the word bullseye. So. Very. Hard.
NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” (1916) is the most-performed composition by an English composer. Holst was later embittered with the seven-movement suite, feeling it overshadowed his later work.
The “Uranus” movement (ummm…yeah…) is subtitled “The Magician.”
April 15th, 2008 at 7:20 am
If Uranus is a castrated, frozen gas giant, doesn’t that make dating difficult?
Well, it is just a planet after all.
The tidal bulge of Earth causes the moon to orbit a little further away from Earth after each pass and will eventually fly off into space (remember Space: 1999).
April 15th, 2008 at 8:04 am
My Head is spinning already from this Tuesday knowledge-fest…Dave S, I love Holst’s The Planets, have spent many an hour smoking…ummm…smoking while listening to this wonderful piece.
I will lighten things up for a minute…
MOST SUCCESFUL FILM BASED ON A VIDEO GAME
The first Tomb Raider (USA, 2001) movie grossed $274,703,340 at cinemas worldwide making it the most successful film based on a video game.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:39 am
The original pronunciation of Uranus was “Yer-in-us” with the emphasis on the first syllable, but was changed to its current incarnation because academics worried that people, school children especially, would make fun of how the name contained the word “urine.” So they changed it to “yer-Ayn-us” which solved that problem so effectively, now didn’t it?
April 15th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Excellent information to know.
Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle at a rate of 25 miles per year (assuming that the bottle is uncapped and turned upside down without shaking).
Also?
Groundhog Day originated in Ancient Greece.
I am filled with completely useless information.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Wow…Looks like Craiggers found Wikipedia.
Okay, what can i tell you Uranus….nothing, cause you haven’t shown it to me yet! Ba-da-BUM!
(Why should you be the only one who gets to make jokes?)
Did you know that in Star Trek, when Klingons are circling Uranus, that’s called the Dingleberry Manuever? HEYY-OH! Thanks, I’ll be here all week!
No, seriously, let me see…um, nope, I got nothing relating to this. But I know the Teen Titans have been a superhero team in DC Comics since the 60’s, originally made up of the sidekicks of the big superheroes. That’s as close as I can get to Uranus…which is very unfortunate for me. (Huzzah!)
HUGS….
April 15th, 2008 at 9:48 am
The Swedish scientist, Svante August Arrhenius, is best known for first discovering the greenhouse effect and for the Arrhenius Equation, which can help determine the temperature by a cricket’s chirps.
In 1889 Arrhenius described that the chirp rate of a cricket is regulated by the rate of one or more of the cricket’s metabolic reactions, and he found that the temperature could be calculated by the number of cricket chirps. The insect’s metabolism can be related to its absolute temperature by using a form of the Arrhenius equation; the relationship between the rate constant and the activation energy of a reaction.
One case that follows the Arrhenius equation is the chirp rate of the snowy tree cricket, and its use as a chirping thermometer. It is said that these crickets are more accurate than most cricket species as their chirps are slow enough to count, and they synchronize their singing. If the number 40 is added to the number of chirps in a 15-second interval, the sum is a fair approximation of the temperature in Fahrenheit. The temperature in Celsius is roughly equal to the number of cricket chirps in 8 seconds plus 5.
So if anyone is worried about global warming, buy some crickets and start keeping track
April 15th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Studies (authored by me, et. al.) show that 63% of 18-24 year olds will be uninsured for at least a portion of this year. Whether this is due to imperfections in the health insurance market or the fact that 18-24 year olds more often hold temporary/part-time jobs in fields that don’t generally offer employer-sponsored coverage is a topic for further study.
April 15th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Uranus according to Futurama:
Fry: “Hey, as long as you don’t make me smell Uranus.” *laughs*
Leela: “I don’t get it.”
Professor: “I’m sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.”
Fry: “Oh. What’s it called now?”
Professor: “Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you.”
Fry: “Hehe, no, no, I think I’ll just smell around a bit over here.”
April 15th, 2008 at 11:01 am
“Less denser”? Are you talking out uranus?
April 15th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Ray Ray: *That* was hilarious.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I learned all about the mythology behind Uranus (hee hee) en français last semester (I am in France at the moment) and I have to say that, while Monsieur Hourquet’s explanation was more animated and french (he even found a way to flame the U.S.), yours was much more comprehensible. Plus there’s no plaid, sweat-stained blazer involved (distracting).
To keep my post french-themed, I will share this piece of trivia: France (specifically, Nîmes) is the birthplace of jeans. Denim (which is short for “de Nîmes”) was imported to California by Levi Strauss to make durable pants for gold prosepctors.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:55 am
And how hard is it not to make a joke with Uranus, bullseye, and “so very hard” in such close proximity?
April 15th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
I’m still giggling cause you said Uranus. And douchebag.
And your strength when it came to the bullseye part was astounding!
April 15th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Russia abolished serfdom in the same decade as the United States abolished slavery. Those crazy 1860s were, in many ways, more revolutionary than the 1960s.
The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831-32, in which 10-20% of the slaves in Jamaica participated in the largest slave rebellion in the history of the Western Hemisphere, is also sometimes known as the Baptist War and the Christmas Uprising. It lasted 10 days. Slaves were fully emancipated in Jamaica in 1838.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
When a planet beyond Pluto was discovered several years ago, it was informally referred to as Planet Xena and its lone moon was called Gabriella.
But then a few years ago Xena and Pluto were demoted from planethood on, like, the last day of the International Astronomical Union conference, and some people got upset because so many astronomers had gone home before the vote. Afterwards, Xena was officially renamed Eris after the Goddess of Chaos because of all the problems that her discovery had caused. And now Eris’s moon is renamed Dysnomia, which means lawlessness, which sounds like Lucy Lawless, and the circle is complete.
April 15th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
i was really expecting a picture to go with this one…
April 15th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
William Herschel lived in my home town, but his house didn’t have a garden so he had to do his amateur astronomy in the street. One day he was out observing the moon when a passing gent joined him for a look. He introduced him to the Bath Literary and Philosophical society and two years later he discovered Uranus in my own fair city. So, in summary, were it not for the fact that Bath is so tiny with very few gardens, we might not even know it was there at all. And all those jokes would be wasted.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
The world’s oldest known dildo is a siltstone 20-centimeter phallus from the Upper Palaeolithic period 30,000 years ago that was found in Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm Germany.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I thought Pat Robertson was the world’s oldest know dildo!
You learn something new everyday!
April 15th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I hear all the hip young kids are using “douchenozzle” now, instead of “douchebag.”
April 15th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Hey Craig, really loving the teach-me-something Tuesdays and responses. Fab idea. Just a quick query, I thought Jupiter, Saturn et al, were Roman gods, not Greek ones, which would be weird though, cos that would make Uranus the only planet named after a Greek god. Anyhow, as Eddie Izzard reminds us, the Romans went along and ’stole’ all the Greek gods cos before they had crap gods like ‘Simon -the god of hairdos’ and ‘Geoff - the god of jam’. Ah, this is all so much smoke screen to hide the fact that I don’t have any interesting facts to offer;-)
Perhaps a couple of interesting mythology related bits, which are probably well known anyway, but I feel churlish for having queried your Uranus post, so must make some small offering in recompense.
The Roman hero Hercules was originally named Heracles in Greek mythology. This was because his human mother wanted to appease Hera, queen of the gods, for having slept with her husband Zeus. Hera was still not best impressed and sent an asp to kill Heracles in his cot. The baby strangled the snake with his bare hands and thus began his notable career as a hero.
Once Heracles got tricked into holding up the heavens (not the world) for Atlas, when the poor old Titan fancied a bit of a break. The misleading idea that Atlas held up the world is something perpetuated by unscrupulous map-makers to this very day
Waiting with baited breath for next week’s fabulous fact factory
April 15th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
So where do I pick up my medal? I seemed to have missed that part…
April 15th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
I squealed a little when I noticed you writting a bit on Uranus, as my younger sister just finished an ungodly long essay on the planet, of which she was required to give an oral presentation on to a collective class of prebubescents. It was titled “Are We Technologically Prepared for Uranus?”
And here is something you may not know (thanks to my sister of course)
When Uranus was first discovered by William Herschel in 1781, he originally wanted to name the planet George after King George III (Cole 17). After some dispute between astronomers, the planet was named Uranus after a sky god in Greek mythology (Gierasch). Little information was known about Uranus until the Voyager 2 spacecraft captured several images as it flew by in 1986. With the whole world in anticipation, scientists began processing the information received by Voyager 2.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
Not sure if I’m just being snarky, or if this will count as a “teach me Tuesday” contribution…
One waits with bated breath, not baited breath.
Bated, as in “abated”. One holds one’s breath in anticipation (or contrarily “don’t hold your breath” if waiting with bated breath is a waste of one’s time).
Baited breath, on the other hand, is when you eat a can of tuna, in hopes that the seventeen year old feline master of the house gets close enough to its human slave so that said slave (i.e., you) can grab feline master by the scruff of the neck and inject its insulin shot for the evening.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
I hate when I forget teach me something Tuesday, I got nothing that matches the topic so:
Researchers recently found a group of Norway Spruce trees between Norway and Sweden that have carbon dated between 4500 and 8000 years old (holy crap!).
After hitting the behemoth (wikipedia) it turns out the previously eldest tree was thought to be Prometheus (cut down in 1964) at 4900 years old. Prometheus (forethought) was the titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.
And my long and winding trip does lead to Uranus.
So to speak.
April 15th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Craig!
Thanks for teaching us this great and hysterical feature on Greek mythology but you forgot to mention the greatest thing about Uranus’ castration (lol). Uranus’ testicles (lol)fell into the ocean and one of them become Aphrodite- the goddess of Love. Imagine that, love born from balls.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Twopi, fair point, work that snark. ‘Baited breath’, is indeed the tuna fish version, sorry. Hope kitty is ok. As an aside, ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ is an epic poem by Lewis Carroll (of Alice fame). Very scary as far as I remember.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Q. What is the only food that doesn’t spoil?
A. Honey
April 18th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
You are one funny dork. Thanks for making me chuckle. How do they know what temparature Uranus is?
April 19th, 2008 at 8:13 am
So what you are saying is all that old world mythology was pulled out of somebody’s a–… eh I mean, Uranus?
Cool fact: It takes three licks to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop according to public information snipits from the 1970s. Maybe they were commercials.