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Meet our neighbours: Uranus

Created: 2026-09-10

Author(s):
Lina Canas

Uranus, one of the distant, giant gaseous planets, mainly composed of hydrogen and helium, with what looks like a frozen atmosphere. Very few clouds and storms are visible on the face of this quiet frozen world as well as a tenous system of rings. To discover this fascinating frozen world, let's build a tactile version using cheap, household items. Just like the other activities of the "Meet our Neighbours" series, the tactile Uranus will be a great resource to explore a planet for both visually impaired and normal vision students.

NOTE: The "Meet our neighbours!" project is published in AstroEDU in this activity Collection. It was produced by NUCLIO and Europlanet and supported by Galileo Teaching Training Program and GalileoMobile. You can find more information at this Link

Materials

For each group bulding a tactile Uranus:

Copies of the attached PDF files (two copies of Tactile_Uranus.pdf and one copy of Tactile_Uranus_Mold.pdf)
thick fabric in light blue
thick fabric in dark blue
sand (rings)
blue wire for the storm
Glue and scissors

NOTE: These materials are only suggestions; all textures can be replaced by other local, easy to find, low-cost materials.

Goals

To explore planet Uranus through a tactile hands-on experience for visually impaired students and their non-visually impaired peers.

Learning Objectives

Students will explore and learn the characteristics of Uranus using the tactile model: its quiet atmosphere, its tilted axis, its ring .

Background

Uranus is the first planet to have been discovered in modern times. It was only discovered in 1781 by the British astronomer William Herschel. Its distance from the Sun is 2.88 million kilometers and it takes 84 years to complete its orbit. Its diameter is 50.700 km (4 times that of Earth) and its mass equals 14.5 times that of Earth.

One of the gas giants of the Solar System
Like Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, it is part of the giant gaseous planets which are mainly composed of hydrogen and helium, but its atmosphere and interior are richer in methane and probably in other heavier constituents like ammonia and water. The reason is that the rocky and icy core of the planet is proportionally larger in Uranus (and Neptune) than on Jupiter and Saturn, compared to the mass of the gas. It is also much colder (-215°C globally, compared to -150°C for Jupiter and -180°C for Saturn) because of its larger distance from the Sun.

A quiet, frozen atmosphere
As a consequence, the atmosphere seems to be in a frozen state, with very little meteorological activity, and very few clouds (made of frozen methane) and storms are visible on the face of this quiet frozen world.
The most particular feature of Uranus is that, contrary to all the other planets, its axis of rotation is not perpendicular (or nearly perpendicular) to its orbit around the Sun, but rather inclined. The cause of this very inclined rotation axis is not known. One of the hypotheses is that Uranus collided with an object the size of Pluto during the first hundreds million years of its history. A more recent theory is that a natural satellite became unstable and changed the orientation of the rotation axis through its gravitational influence, then later escaped the attraction of the planet.
One of the consequences of the inclined axis is that the poles are alternately in darkness (or in sun light) for very long periods, close to 40 years. Also, the mid-latitude and equatorial regions receive on average much less sunlight than if the pole were upright on the orbit. Over the last twenty years or so, these regions have been getting more and more sunlight and have begun to show some convective activity (warmed up air moving upwards). Some banded structure has also begun to appear like on Jupiter and Saturn.

A system of tenuous rings and satellites
Uranus has a very tenuous ring system, which was only discovered in 1977 by observing a star while the planet passed in front of it. These rings are made of very dark material and can only be observed with powerful telescopes or from a spacecraft passing near the planet.
Uranus is also surrounded by lots of natural satellites, the largest being Titania.

Full Description

Prior to the activity

Print two copies of Tactile_Uranus.pdf and one copy of Tactile_Uranus_mold.pdf for each group, and prepare the materials listed above.
Ask students what they know about Uranus, introducing it as a gas giant with many moons and adding that it also has rings as Saturn -even if they are not very well known-. Tell students they will be making models of the planet to investigate its different features.

During the activity

Gather the children in groups of 5 elements – visually impaired and non-visually impaired (ideally three non-visually impaired to 2 visually impaired);
Distribute materials accordingly;
Close supervision is important. Follow each group and explain each of the tactile elements and their correspondence to each object feature.
Understand the different needs of each group of students to promote interaction between the students during the building of the tactile image – visually impaired students need to be familiarized with the different materials involved.
Give enough time to follow instructions and build the tactile image.

Build the tactile Uranus

Step 1
Cut the round shaped mold of the outer area of the planet;
Step 2
Place it on top of the fabric and with a pen outline this shape;
Step 3
Cut the fabric accordingly to the area outlined;

Image: steps 4, step 7 and step 9

Step 4
Place abundant glue on Uranus_Image that corresponds to the cut area;
Step 5
Place the fabric on top of the glue;
Step 6
Cut the section 1 on Uranus_Mold (use the numbered section only);
Step 7
Place it on top of the darker fabric and with a pen outline this shape;
Step 8
Cut the fabric accordingly to the area outlined;
Step 9
Glue the section on top of the glued fabric accordingly to the schematic image;

Image: step 10

Step 10
Curl the plastic wire until it has the same size of round shape and glue it on top of the denoted round section;
Step 11
Place the glue on top of the dark area denoting the ring and place the sand on top of the glue;

WAIT FOR THE IMAGE TO DRY. IT MIGHT TAKE A WHILE BEFORE YOU CAN EXPLORE THE IMAGE.

Exploring the tactile Uranus

There are several ways in which you can explore the scientific content of the tactile schematic images. If you’re presenting the final tactile image to the students, first let them explore and feel the different textures. Questions will arise as the students explore; encourage them to write their questions down and share them with the other groups. Read “Background Information” to understand the different features present in Uranus' schematic tactile image, and share with the students as they ask about them, or (if you have more time), prompt each group to choose a feature to learn more about and then have them present to the other groups in the class.

In the image above, you can identify the following features:

(1) the quiet atmosphere that seems to be in a frozen state, with very little meteorological activity, and very few clouds
(2) the banded structure of atmosphere materialized by the strip of fabric near the pole
(3) one of the few storms in the atmosphere, materialized by twisted wire and cotton
(4) the very tenuous ring system materialized by the glued-on sand.

Evaluation

Call out a feature of Uranus and for each feature give a brief description.
Ask the class to suggest how Uranus is different from the other planets and why.

Educational Activity

Originally developed in

Portugal

Keywords

Uranus model planet solar system tactile visually impaired