Hello, friends!  Life’s been slightly out of control lately, but things are finally starting to settle down.  Meanwhile, we’re nearing the end of this special series covering my #1 favorite facts about each planet of the Solar System.  Today, we’re covering my #1 favorite fact about the planet Uranus.

Everybody (or at least everybody in the English-speaking world) has something snarky to say about Uranus.  But—fun fact!—Uranus was not Uranus’s original name.  In 1781, when British astronomer William Herschel first discovered the planet we now call Uranus, he proposed naming it Georgium Sidus.

Georgium Sidus is Latin for “George’s Star.”  Who’s George?  Oh, well that would be King George III.  For fans of Hamilton, it’s that King George.  The guy who sings “You’ll Be Back.”  Being English himself, Herschel wanted to name his newly discovered planet in honor of the King of England.  Needless to say, this didn’t go over well outside the British Empire.  While the discovery of a new planet was widely celebrated, the name Georgium Sidus was roundly rejected.

German astronomer Johann Bode proposed the name Uranus, honoring the ancient Greek god of the sky, who was also the father of Saturn and the grandfather of Jupiter.  I assume Bode didn’t realize what “Uranus” would sound like in English.  Then again, I sometimes wonder if he did know.  I wonder if Bode was deliberately pranking the entire English-speaking world: “Oh, you wanted to name a planet after King George III?  How about we call it ‘Uranus’ instead?”

Thank you, friends, for reading.  Stay tuned for my final post in this series, when I’ll share my #1 favorite fact about Neptune.