Uranus: correct geometry and rotation, imagery still pending

Measured facts

Classification

Ice giant planet

Mean radius

25,362 kmPublished mean radius stored as renderer geometry.

Mean diameter

50,724 km

Reference shape

Oblate reference ellipsoid · flattening 0.0229Equatorial 25,559 km, polar 24,973 km. No terrain displacement or cloud-height model.

Mean radius in Earth radii

3.98

Appearance

Atmospheric provider foundation · assets pending

Observation epoch

No observational appearance integrated

What you are looking at

The renderer prepares an oblate reference ellipsoid from NASA/JPL equatorial and polar radii, so the gas giant is not drawn as a perfect sphere even before imagery arrives.

Orientation follows IAU_URANUS from pck00011 at the selected TDB epoch, which reproduces the planet’s near-sideways pole. This is a rotation model, not a weather model.

The visible disk is a labelled educational proxy. It carries the body’s marker colour and no observational claim.

Distance, scale and light time

Distances here are computed from the shipped JPL Horizons state archive, sampled once per day across its declared coverage (2020-01-01 00:00 TDB through 2040-01-01 00:00 TDB). Because both bodies move on different orbits, the separation changes constantly; the figures below include the dates at which the extremes occur.

Distance from Earth

19.420 AU · 2,905,152,996 kmAt the recorded snapshot epoch 2026-08-29 00:00 TDB, one-way light time 2.69 hours.

Distance from the Sun

19.447 AU · 2,909,265,427 kmComputed in the same epochs and frame (Earth-centred ecliptic J2000.0 / ICRF).

Delivery and camera limits

COSMOS stops the camera at 1.08 mean radii for Uranus. This body has no observational imagery integrated yet, so only an educational-geometry limit applies.

Appearance status

Atmospheric provider foundation · assets pending

Renderer provider id

uranus-visual-v1

Closest permitted approach

1.08 mean radiiEducational geometry limit only; no observational surface imagery is integrated for this body yet.

Rotation model

IAU_URANUS — pck00011 (2022-12-27), IAU 2015 Uranus modelSource: https://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/generic_kernels/pck/pck00011.tpc

Geometry

oblate-reference-ellipsoidReference oblate ellipsoid; no terrain displacement and no cloud-height model

Provenance

Appearance provenance is carried by the provider at runtime, not added by the page: no appearance layer is registered for this body, so only geometry and position are claimed.

Category

artist-educational-representationNo provider-supplied appearance record exists yet; this is the registry classification.

Registry source

NASA/JPL Solar System Dynamics

Limitations COSMOS discloses

• Appearance incomplete; no observational surface or atmosphere claimed
• No Voyager 2, Hubble or JWST atmospheric product is integrated yet.
• No solid visible terrain, no ring model and no selected-date cloud pattern is claimed.
• The derived limb shell adds depth only; it never supplies cloud detail.
• Position is interpolated inside 2020-01-01 00:00 TDB through 2040-01-01 00:00 TDB; requesting an epoch outside that window is rejected instead of extrapolated.