Planet Uranus Discovered in 1781

On March 13th 1781, astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. He was looking at the sky through a telescope that he made himself when he saw a bright light. At first, he mistook it for a comet. He soon found out that the object was a planet.

At first, Herschel wanted to name the planet after the British ruler, King George III. However, people outside of Britain were against this idea. To follow the tradition of naming planets after mythological Gods, Uranus was named after the Greek god of the sky. 

Herschel became very famous after this discovery. Later, he also discovered Uranus’ two largest moons, Titania and Oberon. 

After its discovery, Uranus became the seventh planet from the sun. In 1846, the eighth planet, Neptune, was discovered and in 1930 Pluto was discovered. Currently, we have eight planets in our solar system as Pluto is no longer considered a planet.