Uranus
Uranus names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Uranus the outermost but one of the major planets
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the outermost but one of the major planets. It moves in an elliptical orbit. Its mean distance from the sun is nineteen times as great as that of the earth. The year of Uranus is eighty-four times as long as ours. The light and heat received from the sun is 1/370 of that received by us. The volume is estimated at from forty-seven to sixty-five times that of the earth; the mass is 14.6 times as great; the density is one-third as great as that of the earth. A body would weigh a trifle more on the surface of Uranus than on the earth. Uranus was the first planet to be "discovered." Others plainly visible were known to the ancients, but it remained for Sir John Herschel, looking through his seven-inch telescope, to discover, 1781, that Uranus was not a star. He thought at first that it was a comet. Uranus has four satellites or moons that have received the fairy names of Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. They have a diameter of perhaps 250 to 500 miles. They are so small and so distant they were not discovered until 1851.
Uranus in Greek mythology
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in Greek mythology, the most ancient of all the gods. He married Gæa, or Earth, by whom he had, first, the children called the hundred-handed, Briareus, Cottus, and Gyges; secondly, the Cyclopes, Arges, Steropes, and Brontes; thirdly, the Titans, Oceanus, Cœus, Saturnus, etc., and lastly, the Giants. He was dethroned and mutilated by his son Saturnus, and from his blood sprang the Furies, Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
u'ra-nus, in Greek mythology, Heaven, the husband of Gaea, and the first ruler of the universe. He was the father of the titans, of the cyclops, and of the giants. He confined his children in Tartarus, lest they should supersede him, but he was dethroned finally by Cronus. See Cronus ; Titans
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's Encyclopedia of 1910 credits the 1781 discovery to "Sir John Herschel" — it was his father, William Herschel, sweeping the sky at Bath, and John was not born until 1792. The four "fairy names" of 1910 have multiplied: Miranda was found in 1948, and Voyager 2's single flyby on 24 January 1986 returned the first close images, revealing a bleak cratered Miranda and a planet tipped 98 degrees so that its poles face the sun in turn. Rings, unsuspected in 1910, were detected in 1977 when the planet occulted a star, and the moon count now stands at more than two dozen. The mythological entries, on the other hand, still read exactly as they did — Hesiod's Ouranos, castrated by Cronus, has not been revised.
Written for this edition, 2026.