The coldest planet in the Solar System, ironically, is not the one furthest from the Sun. Many might think that Neptune would be, but no: It’s Uranus.
Let us remember that, in the classification of the planets, the closest to our star is Mercury, and the furthest away was Pluto, until he was demoted. That position was taken by Neptune.
The average distance between Neptune and Earth is 4,351,400,000 kilometers, approximately 30 times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
However, as we have said, the planet named after the Greek god of the sea It is not the one with the lowest temperature.
Neptune has an average of -218 °C, by the -224.2 °C of Uranus. What are the reasons? Let’s see them.
Uranus has a denser atmosphere, so the cold is retained more, explains NASA. “Its atmosphere is composed mainly of molecular hydrogen and atomic helium, with a small amount of methane,” says the North American aerospace agency.
Then we have its atmosphere: “It’s an ice giant. Most of its mass is a dense, hot fluid of ‘icy’ materials (water, methane and ammonia) on a small rocky core.”
Finally, the other reason why Uranus is colder than Neptune is that its axis is inclined 97.8 degrees. This means that the poles of the seventh planet are almost constantly pointing towards the Sun, making temperatures at its poles even colder than at the equator.
The lowest temperature recorded on Uranus is -224.2 °C, measured in the planet’s upper atmosphere. Temperatures on the surface of Uranus are probably even colder, but it is difficult to measure accurately due to the planet’s dense atmosphere.
Only one spacecraft has left our planet to explore the ice giant. It was the Voyager 2 probe, launched in 1977 by NASA and whose activity continues to be detected. Hence the little we know about Uranus.