As cold as ice
On the night of 13 March 1781, William Herschel was peering through his telescope in his back garden in New King Street, Bath, when he noticed an unusual faint object near the star Zeta Tauri. He observed it for several nights and noted that it was moving slowly against background stars. The astronomer first thought he had found a comet but later identified it, correctly, as a distant planet. Subsequently named Uranus, it was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity. The achievement earned Herschel membership of the Royal Society, a knighthood and enduring astronomical fame.
Studies have since shown Uranus to be an odd world. While the rest of the planets within our solar
