Celestia Forums

This is a wonderful tool/toy/program. I haven't had a lot of time to browse but...I was doing a brief flyby of Uranus and noticed that it doesn't look like it's positioned properly. It is my understanding that Uranus is inclined such that it's rotating on its side - its North Pole is almost pointed towards the Sun. Because of this I believe its moons would be orbiting in orientation to the equatorial ecliptic of Uranus thus they would be visible to Earth at all times - much like a bullseye. Is this incorrect? If this is correct can this be fixed easily? I haven't looked at any of the code so I wouldn't know off-hand whether attempting to tilt this planet would work with the rest of the resident coding.

Tweeze

Amazing isn't it? The real world allways turns out to be even more surprising than anything we might think of ourselves.
Yes, it's real and being represented very acurately by Clestia.

Remember that Uranus' polar axis always points in the same direction, toward the same stars, but the planet is moving around the Sun. Just like on Earth, the Sun appears to be in different places in the sky at different times in the Uranian year.

Uranus' south pole did point toward the sun when Voyager 2 flew by, but that was 21 years ago, in 1984. Uranus takes about 84 years to go around the Sun, so it has moved about 90 degrees around its orbit since then. Now it's near an Equinox: its polar axis points almost 90 degrees away from the sun. In another 21 years, in 2026, Uranus will have moved another 90 degrees in its orbit and then its north pole will be pointing toward the sun.

You can use Celestia to watch the seasons change on Uranus in a lot less than 84 years

Does this clarify things?

AH! Yes thank-you. Your responses have been very helpful.

Tweeze