Mistakes in AN article on Uranus?

[AWR]

Just to check I'm not going mad.

"At its equinoxes the north and south poles take turns to point directly at the sun,...." (p69)

"Come 2007 and Uranus north pole was directly facing towards the Sun." (p71)

This is wrong isn't it? The equinox is when the equator points towards the sun (and the rings appear edge-on). Or do I have to go back to my books?

Many thanks,

Andrew

[Naz]

Back to the books I am afraid Uranus is tilted over be about 98 degrees so the poles will point towards the Sun and us as it orbits.

More about Uranus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scroll down to Axial tilt and all explained there.

Archie

[marcdearn]

Uranus spins around 90 degs to the way the rest of the planets

You are right for all except Uranus...

[AWR]

I appreciate the axial tilt and that the poles will point towards the sun once every 40 or so years.

I was referring to the description of the word equinox in the article.

Is it not the solstice when the poles point towards the sun?

To my understanding 2007 was an equinox - the Hubble pictures show the rings edge on. The poles last pointed towards the sun in 1986 and the rings would have looked like a target.

Andrew

[BinocularSky]

Is it not the solstice when the poles point towards the sun?

That is correct. If the article says otherwise, it is incorrect.

[Hypernova]

I noticed this too and it confused me somewhat for a minute, I guess it was just the wrong word being used. Surely the same definitions of equinox and solstice still apply to Uranus.