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The Rotation of Uranus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Richard M. Goody
Richard M. Goody*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138

Extract

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From the start of this century until the mid-1970’s the rotation rate of Uranus was reported to be 10.8 h in a retrograde sense (see, for example, Allen, 1955), but a cursory examination of the origin of this datum reveals that little confidence should be placed in it.

Three independent techniques for measuring the rotation rate are available, each very difficult and not including the most direct method of observing the motion of features across the disc. Visual observers have reported features from time to time (see Alexander, 1965, for a full historical account), but the mean diameter of Uranus is only 3.6 arcsec and large high contrast features are rare in the visible spectrum, if they exist at all.

Type
Present Knowledge of Uranus
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 60: Uranus and the Outer Planets , 1982 , pp. 143 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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