Whos responsible for naming the planet Uranus?
In the interest of brevity, we’re limiting ourselves to four Uranus jokes. Otherwise we’d be here all day. And while our afternoon is pretty open, we know you have more important things to do than giggle over the scintillating history of Uranus (that’s one). Uranus was discovered by William Herschel on March 13, 1781. Apparently the silly goose first thought he’d found a comet. Imagine — mistaking Uranus for a humungous flying object (two). According to Wikipedia, Herschel dubbed it Georgium Sidus in honor of King George III of Great Britain. He later changed the name to Georgian Planet, but neither moniker worked outside the United Kingdom. To give the newly discovered planet global appeal, astronomers around the world submitted suggestions, including Astraea, Cybele, Hypercroniu
