What was the event that may have caused uranus's odd orientation to the Sun?
490094
The reason for Uranus' extreme axial tilt is also not known. It is speculated that perhaps during the formation of the planet it collided with an enormous protoplanet, resulting in the skewed orientation
580477
At 09:38am EDT on May 15, 2006, the planets were not aligned, not even close--the planets were all over the sky.\n\nIn order along the ecliptic, starting with Aires (where the sun is) and going around through Pisces, etc. we have:\n\nMercury, Venus, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars\n\nSaturn and Mars were about 17 degrees apart, but everything else was even farther apart.  Saturn and Jupiter were farthest apart, at 96 degrees.
851325
I think the rings of Uranus are too tenuous to occlude starlight to a detectable degree. I don't believe those rings were actually discovered until we sent out probes to a point where they were directly visible. \n\n30 NOV 06, 1953 hrs, GMT.
264223
of course it's G, Uranus that wallows around the sun on it's side. Earth is 23.5.
15450
Summer on Uranus lasts 21 years using the definition of 4 equal seasons. However, the period between vernal (spring) equinox and autumnal equinox is actually 42 years. This year is the vernal equinox.\nI quote:\n"The extreme tilt of the axis of Uranus has important implications for the weather on that planet. Consider how the seasons vary during the course of one uranian year:\n\n    * Winter solstice (which last occurred in 1985 AD):\n      The north pole is pointed almost directly away from the Sun.\n      The northern hemisphere experiences perpetual darkness.\n      The southern hemisphere experiences perpetual sunlight.\n    * Spring equinox (2006 AD):\n      The rotation axis is perpendicular to the Uranus-Sun direction.\n      From any point on Uranus, the Sun rises in the east\n      and sets in the west 8 1/2 hours later.\n    * Summer solstice (2027 AD): The north pole is pointed almost directly toward the Sun.\n      The north experiences perpetual sunlight.\n      The south experiences perpetual darkness."\n\nSource: http://users.zoominternet.net/~matto/M.C.A.S/notes_uranus__neptune.htm
1011135
When the cloud of gas and dust that formed the sun began to gather together to form the sun, some of it didn't get sucked in by the increasing gravity at the center, but gathered together into less-dense "rings" around the newly-formed sun.\n\nThen gravity did its magic on those gases and dust, gathering them together into smaller balls, the planets. Around some of them were still smaller rings, which gathered together into moons, or, in some cases, more widely dispersed rings.\n\nIf you play with water, stirring it with a pencil to create a little whirlpool, then drop little bits of soil or even food coloring into it, you'll get a feel for how it might have happened. It's not the same, but if you watch it and try, you can imagine how it might have happened.\n\nThen, of course, you'll start wondering about hurricanes. <g>
338419
First, all planets in our solar system are tilted, although Mercury isn't tilted much.  And yes, this is what causes seasons.\n\nWe can observe seasonal changes (growing and shrinking of polar ice caps and the dust storms they seem to induce) on Mars.  I believe Neptune also has very strange seasons that we don't know much about.\n\nOn a bigger, gaseous planet like Jupiter though, although it tilts we wont see much in the way of seasons because it's atmosphere is affected by many other things that make it turbulent as is.\n\nIn the case of Venus, it has such a wild greenhouse effect (and might be close to being perfectly upside down, I can't recall) that I don't think we will see much in the way of seasons there either.
717703
"Venus has a slow retrograde rotation, meaning it rotates from east to west, instead of west to east as most of the other major planets do. (Uranus, and Pluto also have retrograde rotation, though Uranus's axis, tilted at 97.86 degrees, almost lies in its orbital plane.) A slow retrograde rotation is thought to have developed as a consequence of tidal forces, friction, and solar heating of Venus' thick atmosphere. [2] If the Sun could be seen from Venus' surface, it would appear to rise in the west and set in the east for a day-night cycle of 116.75 Earth days (Venus' mean solar day), and a Venusian year would thus last 1.92 Venusian "days". At the equator, Venus' surface rotates at a mere 6.5 km/h (4 mph).\n\nIn addition to this unusual retrograde rotation, the periods of Venus' rotation and of its orbit are synchronized in such a way that it always presents the same face toward Earth when the two planets are at their closest approach (5.001 Venusian solar days between each inferior conjunction). This may simply be a coincidence, but there is some speculation that this may be the result of tidal locking, with tidal forces affecting Venus' rotation whenever the planets get close enough together —although the tides raised by Venus on Earth are vanishingly small."\n-Wikipedia\n\nwow i didnt know that.... thanks for this interesting info/question
825588
hey visit \n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus
431091
It is because of the Earth's rotation.
994171
A long time ago, probably 4.6 billion years ago, there was a huge cloud of dust and gas particles suspending in space. When a star nearby exploded with a supernova, the force stirred up the dust cloud and cause the cloud to spin. As it spins, heavier dust particles began to collect in the center of the disk of cloud, and the lighter particles are on the sides. The heavy particles collided with each other and created a protostar, an early form of star. The smaller clumps on the outer ring of the disk began to collect material to form the planets. When the temperature and pressure within the protostar is high enough, nuclear fusion began and our sun was ignited. Since the entire spinning disk of clouds was rotating in one direction - counterclockwise when viewed from the North Pole, the planets orbited the sun and the sun rotated in the same direction. It is true for the previous poster to mention that the course of the orbit would only be changed if another body impacts the planet. But if the body is large and fast enough to impact a planet to revolve around the sun in the opposite direction, it might as well be bumped out of its orbit and sent on a course away from the solar system. It is believed to be true that a minor collision could have tipped the planet over on its side, such as Uranus, and even flipped the rotation direction of the planet entirely, like Venus.
374451
he prove that the earth is revolving around te sun not sun revolvong around the earth...so this went against the church in the middle ages.. so he was exucted.  he used telescope to see the planets and moons that revolve around the sun and then..  he prove theat the sun revolv aund the sun..
755991
We do not have a real explanation...\nDuring the stage of formation of the solar system, the gases and dust accumulated to form one big blog, the sun, and several other blogs that became planets.  This cloud of dust was animated with a small rotation, and each blog rotated with slight differences.  The Sun formed, and the rest of the dust became planets, still with some remaining rotation.  At that time, many small blogs were floating around and hitting each other.  It is likely that, at that stage, Venus (or what would become Venus) was hit by another rock, changed rotation, and still running that way.\nSo, no, Venus is not "special".  It is just another rock that was formed at the time...
992659
Does it make any difference....???...lets say it is really really hot...then again it may be really really cold......or maybe it is another uranus that you are trying to find out about.....is it the large moon that circles uranus possibly....hmmmmm,...I wonder
1020724
Based upon the study of lava formations in Hawaii, it has been deduced that the Earth's magnetic field reverses at intervals, ranging from tens of thousands to many millions of years, with an average interval of approximately 250,000 years. The last such event, called the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, occurred some 780,000 years ago.\n\nThe mechanism responsible for geomagnetic reversals is not well understood. Some scientists have produced models for the core of the Earth wherein the magnetic field is only quasi-stable and the poles can spontaneously migrate from one orientation to the other over the course of a few hundred to a few thousand years. Other scientists propose that the geodynamo first turns itself off, either spontaneously or through some external action like a comet impact, and then restarts itself with the magnetic "North" pole pointing either North or South. External events are not likely to be routine causes of magnetic field reversals due to the lack of a correlation between the age of impact craters and the timing of reversals. Regardless of the cause, when magnetic "North" reappears in the opposite direction this is a reversal, whereas turning off and returning in the same direction is called a geomagnetic excursion.\n\nUsing a magnetic detector (a variant of a compass), scientists have measured the historical direction of the Earth's magnetic field, by studying the layered iron-rich lava rocks. This is possible as each layer has been found to maintain the original magnetic field at its time of cooling. They have found that the poles have shifted a number of times throughout the past.\n\nThe above is a quote from Wikpaedia and magnetic pole reversal is well documented in scientific literature. It still begs the question raised by one of the correspondents above as to why then there were not great extinctions as the magnetosphere would be disrupted and lethal cosmic radiation would harm all surface dwelling life.
272482
When the Sun was born. ;)  4.6 billion years ago.
60097
Yes.  Uranus actually does; its axis is almost perpendicular.  The current working hypothesis is that a massive body collided with Uranus.