converted Khoros VIFF image NASA Hubble / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

Happy 239th discovery Birthday March 13 to the RADICAL planet URANUS. Truly the home of the weird, it orbits at a 90-degree angle, the only known planet to do so.

Discovered March 13, 1781, by William Herschel who discovered Uranus while surveying stars in the night sky using a telescope that he constructed himself. Herschel noticed that one of the “stars” seemed different, and after observing it many more times, noticed that it orbited the Sun. Hershel originally wanted to name it George’s Star after King George, or the “Georgian Planet” which wasn’t popular outside of Britain.

The name Uranus comes from the ancient Greek deity of the skies Uranus, OURANOUS, the father of Cronus (Saturn) and grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter), which in Latin became Uranus.  It is the only planet whose name is derived directly from a figure of…