Planet Uranus Caught On VLT (Very Large Telescope)

BBC ^ | 12-31-2002

[blam]

Tuesday, 31 December, 2002, 11:34 GMT

Planet Uranus caught on VLT

A picture showing Uranus and moons (pic: ESO)

The "Very Large Telescope" (VLT) has caught a remarkable image of the planet Uranus circled by some of its moons. The rings of the planet - which is 3,000 million kilometres away from Earth - were clearly displayed in the image.

The rings are almost undetectable from Earth in visible light.

The VLT is located at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile.

The image was obtained in near-infrared, and contains seven of its moons.

VLT is based at Paranal in Chile Two of the moons in the picture, Puck and Portia, were only found in the 1980s as the Voyager probe prepared for its flyby of the planet.

Uranus, which is at a distance from the Earth equivalent to 20 times the distance between the Earth and sun, was first spotted by William Herschel in 1781.

The UK contributes approximately 20% of the cost of the European Southern Observatory.

[blam]

No 'Uranus' jokes please.

[WhiteGuy]

You're no fun.

[goldstategop]

All the gas giants have rings. Jupiter has one but its too faint to be seen from Earth.

[visagoth]

Thanks for posting Uranus.

:)

[Petronski]

Do you mean to say Uranus is a gas giant?

[ovrtaxt]

No jokes? This is gonna be a short thread...not much else to discuss.

Don't be such an anus, blam! : )

[Jaxter]

"Do you mean to say Uranus is a gas giant?"

[Dr. I. C. Spots]

Beam me up Scotty, the Klingons are attacking Ur......

[goldstategop]

They're different from terrestrial planets like Earth. They're huge balls of gasses than become frozen solid when you descend to the planet's crushing depths. There's no real crust to speak of.

[Moonmad27]

I just like the name of the telescope - "Very Large Telescope" Sounds like something in a Monty Python sketch. Between that and the usual Uranus comments, before reading the article I would have sworn it was all a joke.

[ovrtaxt]

Umbriel, Titania, Portia, Puck, Miranda, and Ariel.

Sounds like the names of Hillary's g@y senatorial crack staff. All in orbit around her VLT. (Very LARGE Tushie).

Can be seen from the Par-anal Observatory.

In Chile.

Now, blam, there's just too much here! We could go on with the puns all day!

[error99]

Blam, we see that Uranus is a gas giant.
- - -
NOW we finally know where the name BLAM came from !

[Miss Marple]

Does anyone besides me find the name VLT (Very Large Telescope) amusing? It's sort of self-evident, yet understated.

It is sort of like calling an aircraft carrier a Very Big Ship.

[Miss Marple]

LOL! I see that you and I have the same sense of humor. EVERY time I read one of these stories I get sidetracked in laughing at the name!

[blam]

"Does anyone besides me find the name VLT (Very Large Telescope) amusing? It's sort of self-evident, yet understated. "

It's used to distinguish from the VLA (Very Large Array) shown below, which are radio telescopes.

[Miss Marple]

Well, that doesn't make it less funny to me!

[TN4Liberty]

There's no real crust to speak of.

No real crust on Uranus? While that's good news, it's more than I needed to know.

[goldstategop]

Not that you'd actually be able to see anything on a planet without a beginning middle or end except an eternal kingdom of ice and atmosphere as far as the eye can see.

[Johnny Shear]

Is Uranus the planet that we discovered had rings only about 20 years ago? And we only found that out because of one of the probes that did a fly-by. Or was that another planet?

If it was Uranus, it's pretty amazing that we can now see the rings from earth...

And which one has the big blue storm? And which one had the meteors hitting it a few years back?

[don-o]

In certain parts of the Southern Hemishpere, on clear nights in December, Uranus may be seen with the naked eye.