.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My interest in astronomy began when I followed my older brother Ron outside to see constellations, satellites, northern lights, and meteors before Shiras Planetarium opened.\u00a0 My first visit to the Shiras took place the year it was opened.\u00a0 I was in sixth grade at Whitman Elementary, a whole block away from the new MSHS.\u00a0 They marched us over for a presentation during school one day and I dragged our parents there for an evening public showing soon after.\u00a0 Mr. Girard, the planetarium\u2019s first director, lived a block closer to the school than we did and presented evening shows every Monday.\u00a0 The next summer, we were riding our bikes past the school and discovered him working on the next public program.\u00a0 We invited ourselves in and he was\u00a0 kind enough to answer our questions and show us some of the new things he was working on.\u00a0 When we had taken up enough of Mr. Girard\u2019s time, he ushered us to the door and said, \u201cThanks for visiting, come back anytime.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the fall of 1977, I was in my third year teaching in Ontonagon when I made contact with the second Shiras Planetarium director, Scott Stobbelaar.\u00a0 I was teaching seventh graders at the time and made arrangements to bring my class to the planetarium as part of our astronomy unit.\u00a0 It was my first attempt at organizing a field trip and of course, there was a learning curve.\u00a0 There was no money budgeted for field trips, so we told the kids, \u201cIf you want to go, it will cost a buck each to pay for the bus (shows were free to school groups back then).\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to go, you can have a lonely day at school.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Our two bus loads set off on an early December morning and naturally, one of them broke down going up the second big hill just south of L\u2019Anse.\u00a0 The timely passing of a Michigan State Police car got a message to the MSP Post in L\u2019Anse, who relayed it back to the school.\u00a0 Mechanic Al Daniels came to the rescue and we were back on the road in a different bus in less than an hour.\u00a0 The planetarium could only seat 66 so we had scheduled two shows with a lunch stop at the Wildcat Den located in NMU\u2019s University Center.\u00a0 The delay meant a change in lunch plans but we learned a few lessons – like scheduling the trip earlier in the fall in case we had another break down.\u00a0 Thus began a 40 year string of yearly visits to the Shiras Planetarium that was broken the year before my 2018 retirement when it was closed for renovations.\u00a0 In all that time, we had one other bus give up the will to live but a quick thinking bus driver was able to borrow a bus from the Baraga schools to get us there on time.\u00a0 When I added the eighth grade science classes to my schedule, they continued what I am told are unbroken records for a school group taking the farthest and most continuous visits to the planetarium.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With enough planetarium backstory told, we can cut to the chase.\u00a0 The title of this FTV says \u2018YOOR-un-us\u2019 – so one may wonder where this fits in.\u00a0 On my very first trip to the Shiras Planetarium, I was a little miffed at some of my classmates.\u00a0 As Mr. Girard was giving us a tour of the Solar System, a bit of muffled snickering ensued when he got to the planet Uranus.\u00a0 Crude elementary age thinking aside, I never could find the humor in turning the name of a majestic planet into a potty joke.\u00a0 Mr. Girard let it pass but it always bugged me when one could not say the name \u2018Uranus\u2019 without someone getting the giggles.\u00a0 After taking a couple of college level astronomy classes from Dr. Duane Fowler at NMU, I adapted his use of \u2018YOOR-un-us\u2019 after he explained that the whole \u2018potty humor\u2019 thing happened because we Americans were simply saying it wrong.\u00a0 I took this at face value but never did understand the origins of the name until I received the September 2022 Equinox edition of <\/span>The Planetary Report<\/span><\/i> that is printed four times per year by The Planetary Society (see <\/span>planetary.org<\/span><\/i> for more information).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As PS president Bill Nye (yes, that <\/span>Bill Nye the Science Guy <\/span><\/i>guy) explained, \u201cThe Planetary Society gives NASA input every ten years for their <\/span>Planetary Science Decadal Survey.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 With input from the PS, the 2022 decadal set a new direction for planetary exploration:\u00a0 Uranus.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mysterious world.\u00a0 Uranus and neighboring Neptune are ice giants, made mostly of materials that were ices at the time of formation.\u00a0 They played an important role in the evolution of the Solar System.\u00a0 Using telescopes on the ground and in orbit, we\u2019ve peered at these distant worlds, but there are limits to what we can learn from afar.\u201d\u00a0 Among the numerous features in this issue of <\/span>TPR <\/span><\/i>devoted to highlighting this new emphasis on exploring Uranus, one of the first tackled the whole naming thing.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Uranus was discovered on March 13, 1781 by William Herschel, no doubt with his sister Caroline at his side taking notes as she often did for her brother.\u00a0 Hershel was actually seeking new comets when he discovered the Solar System\u2019s seventh planet, thus giving him the even rarer opportunity of naming a new planet.\u00a0 Devoted English subject that he was, William first considered Georgium Sidus, or George\u2019s Star.\u00a0 Astronomers outside of Great Britain were not keen on him not following the accepted convention of naming planets after Roman gods.\u00a0 Both Herschel and Neptune were considered until German astronomer Johann Bode suggested Uranus.\u00a0 Bode\u2019s calculations and observations were used to help confirm the new object as a planet and his suggestion soon became the most popular.\u00a0 Chemist Martin Klaproth named his newly discovered element \u2018Uranium\u2019 in support of the name.\u00a0 Stubborn English astronomers continued to use Georgium Sidus until around 1850 when they finally joined the rest of the world in using Uranus.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Kate Howells, communications strategy advisor for TPS, notes Uranus was a suitable, yet odd name for the new world:\u00a0 \u201cUranus is actually a variation on the name of the Greek god Ouranos.\u00a0 Greek and Roman mythology share many of the same characteristics, but they just gave them different names.\u00a0 The Roman version of Ouranos is called Caelus.\u00a0 Bode must have preferred the sound of Ouranos because he chose a Latinized version of the Greek name rather than the Roman name itself.\u00a0 Ouranos became Uranus, and the planet was officially named.\u201d\u00a0 Bode no doubt did not anticipate the popular Americanized pronunciation \u2018Your-AY-nus\u2019 that would cause scientists and educators such headaches a century later.\u00a0 Most in the scientific community prefer the \u2018YOOR-an-us\u2019 alternative and NASA officially endorses this pronunciation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Howells sums up the ongoing debate thusly:\u00a0 \u201cSince both pronunciations are deviations from the original Greek \u201cOOH-ran-ohs,\u2019 neither is more technically correct than the other.\u00a0 But as we look forward to the coming years of reporting on and advocating for the exploration of Uranus, we\u2019ll [The Planetary Society] opt for \u2018YOOR-un-us\u2019 and do our best to keep this fascinating world from becoming the butt of the joke.\u201d\u00a0 Obviously, there is a \u2018potato – potahto\u2019 element at play here, but we will leave it to the readers to choose:\u00a0 the \u2018potty humor\u2019 or \u2018 knowledgable and scientifically accepted\u2019 pronunciation.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Today, we know much more about Uranus than Herschel did and there is no debating the plant\u2019s statistics.\u00a0 With an atmosphere consisting of 83 percent hydrogen, 15 percent helium, and 2 percent methane and other gasses, it would be an inhospitable place to visit.\u00a0 With no true rocky planetary surface, we would find the average temperature where the atmospheric pressure would equal the sea level pressure on Earth a bit cool.\u00a0 The average temperature there would be a chilly -195 degrees C, or -320 degrees F.\u00a0 Uranus orbits 19 X farther from the sun than the Earth and Solar Year for Uranus would be 30,687 Earth days, 84 times longer than the Earth\u2019s Solar Year.\u00a0 While the other planets orbit with their axis of rotation close to perpendicular to the Earth\/Sun plane, Urannus was at some point tipped on its side.\u00a0 We are familiar with the 23 and one half degree tilt of the Earth because it drives our seasons.\u00a0 Uranus tilts 98 degrees from perpendicular.\u00a0 If other planets are viewed as \u2018tops\u2019 spinning about the Sun, Uranus is more like one of those spherical casters found on furniture \u2018rolling\u2019 around as it orbits the sun.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Scientists speculate that Jupiter and Saturn may have originally formed farther from the Sun than their current locations while Uranus and Neptune formed nearer to the Sun.\u00a0 The planetary dance of these two giant terrestrial planets and the two ice giants (so called \u2018gravitational resonances\u2019) may have caused them to switch places and induced Uranus to wobble enough to land it on its side.\u00a0 Another popular theory is another giant proto-planet slammed into Uranus to the same effect.\u00a0 A closer look taken by a new exploratory mission may provide enough information to help determine what actually happened.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This new exploration phase will not be the first visit to Uranus.\u00a0 Voyager 2 was launched in 1977 to explore the outer Solar System.\u00a0 After flybys of Jupiter and Saturn, V2 arrived at Uranus on January 24, 1986.\u00a0 Our first close up images of the planet were taken as the craft sped by 81,500 kilometers (50,600 miles) above the cloud topped atmosphere.\u00a0 According to TPS\u2019s Jason Davis, \u201cImages revealed a pale green orb seemingly devoid of features and storms.\u00a0 The planet\u2019s magnetic field was knocked 55 degrees off axis, hinting at some strange dynamics below the atmosphere.\u201d \u00a0 Voyager 2 approached the planet and its rings (did I mention Uranus has rings?\u00a0 <\/span>
\n<\/span>They are not as visible as Saturn\u2019s, but they are there) \u201clike a dartboard, forcing scientists to choose just one moon for a close fly-by;\u00a0 Miranda.\u201d\u00a0 Miranda was shown to be scarred with divots and grooves and possibly the largest cliffs found in the Solar System.\u00a0 Besides Miranda, there are four more major moons (Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon), the largest of which may contain layers of liquid water beneath their frozen surfaces.\u00a0 There are 22 smaller moons in the system and a new mission will target as many of them as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So what is the time line for a new mission to YOOR-un-us?\u00a0 Formal work on the $4.2 billion project could commence as soon as 2024.\u00a0 Interest in a new mission to Uranus has picked up with the recent discovery of more than 5,000 exoplanets (planets around stars other than the Sun).\u00a0 Learning more about Uranus will aid us as we discover and analyze more exoplanets.\u00a0 For those who think spending billions of dollars exploring the cosmos is a waste of time, I will remind one and all that one of humanity\u2019s best characteristics is curiosity.\u00a0 We are driven to know more about the universe, our origins, and what else may be out there.\u00a0 I will also go out on a limb here and suggest that the \u2018billions\u2019 NASA spends on exploration is a small FRACTION of what the world currently invests in armaments.\u00a0 For my dime, I would like to spend more on exploration and less on explosions, thank you.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One last note on the Shiras Planetarium.\u00a0 If you walk past the Ontonagon Area School building on the way to the Bob Carlson Athletic Field, take a good look at the gym wall that faces the playground.\u00a0 There is an outline in the brick wall for the double doors that would have accessed the swimming pool that was never built when the new high school was constructed in 1966-67.\u00a0 I have been told the pool was removed from the plan as the cost of building the new school was stretched too far to include it.\u00a0 Does this sound like the one planned for the new Marquette Sr. High School building back in 1964-65, but it was also dropped from the original plan for financial reasons?\u00a0 The planetarium came to be not because of the pool not being funded, but because they had already received the grant to purchase the equipment and needed a place to set it up.\u00a0 Either way, the MSHS building now has both a pool and a planetarium.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Who better to turn to than Gustav Holst’s\u00a0The Planets<\/em> – This is, of course,\u00a0Uranus<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the new Marquette Senior High School opened for the 1964-65 school year, people were still asking, \u201cWhy do they need a planetarium?\u201d\u00a0 The popular rumor at the time was the school board ran out of funds and modified the building plans as the structure began to take shape.\u00a0 When the available money was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2728"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2731,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2728\/revisions\/2731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}