why do 15 small ice moons orbit the planet uranus?
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Because Uranus's gravity is so much more powerful than its moons and it keeps them in orbit.
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Designated 2003 UB313 (it hasn’t been officially named yet), this “planet” is slightly larger than Pluto, has a small moon and takes more than 500 Earth years to orbit the Sun.\nA planet is a body large enough that, when it formed, it condensed under its own gravity to be shaped like a sphere. It orbits a star directly and is not a moon of another planet.\n To simplify things, some scientists propose that the size of Pluto be designated the smallest size for a planet. If that argument carries the day, we now have 10 planets, since 2003 UB313 meets all the criteria.
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Jupiter has four large moons and dozens of smaller ones (there are about 60 known moons so far). Galileo first discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto in 1610, using a 20-power telescope; these moons are known as the Galilean moons. \n\nThe moons of Jupiter are (in order by their distance from Jupiter): Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea, Thebe, Io, Europa, Ganymede (the biggest), Callisto (the second biggest), Leda (the smallest), Himalia, Lysithea, Elara, Ananke, Carme, Pasiphae, Sinope, and many newly-discovered moons that haven't been named yet.
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well all the planets have moons exept mercury and venus  There are 240 known moons within the Solar system, including 162 orbiting the planets here is a link  u can find more info and the names on the moons\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_satellite
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There are 47 known moons. You can answer you're own question by going here.\nhttp://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm%3Ffobjectid%3D35229
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There's really only one 'icy planet', and that's Pluto.  Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are all terrestrial planets, while Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are all jovian.  That leaves Pluto, and maybe that new one if they decide to call it a planet.
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The first of the planets to be "discovered" was named after the muse of Astronomy (Urania). Uranus is also the name of Saturn's father. Uranus was discovered by William Herschel in 1781, though it had been mistakenly mapped in the past as a star. It is possible under the correct conditions to see Uranus with your just eye (no telescope), though it is pretty difficult to do, and you would need to have good eyesight and know exactly where to look to see it. Of course, you have to pronounce the name correctly. If you say something that sounds like "yer-anus," I don't think you'll make too many friends that way, unless they are proctologists. You should instead say the name as "yer-ah-nis" - not much of an improvement, but it may help.\n\nUranus is so far away that we can't get a great deal of information on it from this distance. A few things we can see are its tilt and rotation rate. Uranus is pretty much tipped over on its side. You know that the Earth is tilted over 23 1/2 degrees; Uranus is tilted over 98 degrees! This means it is on its side (since being 90 degrees would be exactly on its side). Due to this the seasons on Uranus are pretty extreme, especially if you are located at one of the poles. It takes Uranus about 84 years to go around the Sun, so the seasons last for about 21 years. If you were located at one of the poles, you would have 21 years of constant daylight during summer and 21 years of continual darkness during the winter. The temperatures would be pretty extreme. Not only is the planet tilted over, but the  rings and satellites are also in tilted orbits about Uranus. It is likely that early in its history the planet was knocked over by an impact and as the system formed (as the satellites and rings formed), they also ended up in tilted orientations.\n\n Figure 1. The orbit and tilt of Uranus are shown. Uranus is tilted pretty much on its side, so there are times when only certain parts of it will get any sunlight. This is especially true for the polar regions. \n\nThere are several very thin rings around Uranus. The rings were discovered from the Earth by accident in 1977. Astronomers were trying to study the atmosphere of the planet by watching how the light of a star would change (get absorbed by the atmosphere) as the planet moved in front of it. Before the star was anywhere close to the planet, the star's brightness faded several times. This happened again when the star was located on the other side of the planet. Now it is possible that the star could have been eclipsed by some moons, but that would have required some very precise alignments of the moons with the distant star. Rings were the cause for the dimming of the starlight! The rings are rather similar to Jupiter's ring in that they are made of darker material as well as small microscopic particles - stuff like dust. Uranus actually has 11 main rings, far fewer than Saturn.\n\n Figure 2. The dimming of a star's light as it approached Uranus indicated that there are rings around Uranus. \n\nViewing Uranus from the Earth doesn't provide much information, so let's send a spacecraft out there. Actually, we have - the only spacecraft to visit Uranus was Voyager 2 in January of 1986. The other Voyager spacecraft did not visit any other planets after its encounter with Saturn, while Voyager 2 continued on to Uranus and Neptune. All of the up close images we have of them are from that one spacecraft. What did it see?\n\nWhen Voyager 2 flew by Uranus, there were no cloud features (spots) as had been seen on Jupiter and Saturn. In fact, there are no markings at all; the atmosphere of Uranus appeared to be very dull. This was really surprising, since at the time that the Voyager spacecraft flew by Uranus, one of the poles was pointed toward the Sun. Astronomers thought that this would have caused the atmosphere to heat up a great deal and therefore produce a bunch of storms. It was a bit co
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Uranus is distinguished by the fact that it is tipped on its side. Its unusual position is thought to be the result of a collision with a planet-sized body early in the solar system's history. Tilt of axis (degrees)97.86 \n\n1. The rotation of Uranus(7th planet, rotation 84 earth years, 2.87 billion Km from Sun) is retrograde, contrary to the rest of the known rotations. \n2. The rotation of Uranus' four moons is also retrograde. \n\n3. The orbits of Uranus' moons are at a sharp angle (82 degrees) with the orbital plane of the planets. \n    ( undue inclination of a primary to the ecliptic)\n4. The plane of Uranus' equator is also 82 degrees and coincides with the plane of its moons.\n    (large disco-ordination between the inclinations of primary and satellite)\n (Also marked divergence from Bode's Law)\n(Uranus receives 390 times less light than our Earth)\nMechanically, therefore, Uranus and its moons present the perfect picture of a little solar system whose motions are all in the opposite direction from ours. \n\n It may be considered logical to suppose that a foreign element is involved, May be the distance from the Sun is responsible and presence of any other star or celestial bodies
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(m)\n\n the gas planets have rings, but the rings of Uranus are a very faint. The rings cannot be seen from Earth but the Voyager spacecraft showed them. Astronomers get a hint of the rings when they occasionally block the light of a star behind them. Even the Hubble Space Telescope cannot get a very good view of the rings. While the rings of Saturn are made up of fairly small pieces of bright white ices, the rings of Uranus seem to be made of larger chunks of very dark, rocky material. The darkness of the chunks may help explain why they cannot be seen from Earth.
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Because although the moon is as big as a planet, it does not have the characteristics of a planet. Jupiter's moon is a moon because it displays characteristics of a moon, like orbiting Jupiter and being stuck into Juptier's gravational pull.
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Not precisely, but that gives a very good first approximation. The planets generally orbit the Sun in the plane of the Solar equator, which is what you would expect. There are variations, most notably that of Neptune, (and until it was demoted to "dwarf planet", Pluto.\n\nThe plane of the Solar equator is inclined to the plane of the Earth's equator by approx. 7 degrees, and this means that the sun, and all the planets, follow this path, which is called the "ecliptic".It gets that name because the apparent path of the moon crosses the ecliptic at two points, called nodes, and it is when the moon and sun are both at or very near one of these nodes in their apparent motion that an eclipse, either solar or lunar, occurs.
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The total number of known moons of Jupiter now stands at 63, the most of any other planet in the Solar System.\n\nUntil 1975 there were 17 known moons, until Themisto was lost.\n\nIn 1999, researchers rediscovered Themisto and found a further 45 The most well known are the Galilean Moons, which are, in order of increasing distance from Jupiter:Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto
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Several:\n\nVenus. \nJupiter.\nSaturn\nNeptune.\nUranus.\n\n\nAnd some moons have clouds:\n\nJupiter's Galilean moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto have dust clouds from micrometeorites. \n\nSaturn's moon titan has methane clouds apparently.
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Ganymede. It orbits Jupiter.
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Well it sounds like they all have their very own opinion. I found this wonderful site, it is trust worthy ... it's an on line encyclopedia and was just updated May 30th.\n    Jupiter has at least 63 natural satellites (also called moons!) \n    Saturn has a large number of moons, however no one will ever be certain of the precise number because the floating chunks of ice in Saturn's rings technically count as moons and it is difficult to draw a distinction between a large ring particle and a moon. One cool thing about Saturn is that it has the moon named Titan, which you have probably heard of because it is the only moon in our solar system that has a dense atmosphere. \n   If you decide to check out this site, just scroll down and click on the planet of your choice and it will take you to all the info on that planet, then click on natural satellites. Best of luck to you and search for the truth about these moons!
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Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third largest (by diameter). Uranus is larger in diameter but smaller in mass than Neptune. \n\n        orbit:    2,870,990,000 km (19.218 AU) from Sun\n        diameter: 51,118 km (equatorial)\n        mass:     8.683e25 kg\n\n\nHardcopy The New Solar System \nSummarizes what we've learned from interplanetary explorations in the last 25 years. My primary reference for The Nine Planets. \n\nThe Compact NASA Atlas of the Solar System \nThis 'road map' of the solar system is the definitive guide for planetary science. \n\nThe Tempest \nby William Shakespeare \n\nThe Rape of the Lock \nby Alexander Pope \nCareful pronunciation may be necessary to avoid embarrassment; say "YOOR a nus" , not "your anus" or "urine us". \n\nUranus is the ancient Greek deity of the Heavens, the earliest supreme god. Uranus was the son and mate of Gaia the father of Cronus (Saturn) and of the Cyclopes and Titans (predecessors of the Olympian gods). \n\nUranus, the first planet discovered in modern times, was discovered by William Herschel while systematically searching the sky with his telescope on March 13, 1781. It had actually been seen many times before but ignored as simply another star (the earliest recorded sighting was in 1690 when John Flamsteed cataloged it as 34 Tauri). Herschel named it "the Georgium Sidus" (the Georgian Planet) in honor of his patron, the infamous (to Americans) King George III of England; others called it "Herschel". The name "Uranus" was first proposed by Bode in conformity with the other planetary names from classical mythology but didn't come into common use until 1850. \n\nUranus has been visited by only one spacecraft, Voyager 2 on Jan 24 1986. \n\n Most of the planets spin on an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic but Uranus' axis is almost parallel to the ecliptic. At the time of Voyager 2's passage, Uranus' south pole was pointed almost directly at the Sun. This results in the odd fact that Uranus' polar regions receive more energy input from the Sun than do its equatorial regions. Uranus is nevertheless hotter at its equator than at its poles. The mechanism underlying this is unknown. \n\nActually, there's an ongoing battle over which of Uranus' poles is its north pole! Either its axial inclination is a bit over 90 degrees and its rotation is direct, or it's a bit less than 90 degrees and the rotation is retrograde. The problem is that you need to draw a dividing line *somewhere*, because in a case like Venus there is little dispute that the rotation is indeed retrograde (not a direct rotation with an inclination of nearly 180). \n\nUranus is composed primarily of rock and various ices, with only about 15% hydrogen and a little helium (in contrast to Jupiter and Saturn which are mostly hydrogen). Uranus (and Neptune) are in many ways similar to the cores of Jupiter and Saturn minus the massive liquid metallic hydrogen envelope. It appears that Uranus does not have a rocky core like Jupiter and Saturn but rather that its material is more or less uniformly distributed. \n\nUranus' atmosphere is about 83% hydrogen, 15% helium and 2% methane. \n\n Like the other gas planets, Uranus has bands of clouds that blow around  rapidly. But they are extremely faint, visible only with radical image enhancement of the Voyager 2 pictures (right). Recent observations with HST (left) show larger and more pronounced streaks. Further HST observations show even more activity. Uranus is no longer the bland boring planet that Voyager saw! It now seems clear that the differences are due to seasonal effects since the Sun is now at a lower Uranian latitude which may cause more pronounced day/night weather effects. By 2007 the Sun will be directly over Uranus's equator. \n\nUranus' blue color is the result of absorption of red light by methane in the upper a
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Uranus is in the middle