On this day in space: March 13, 1781: Uranus is discovered!

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On March 13, 1781, Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun.

On March 13, 1781, Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun.

Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.

Astronomer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. (Image credit: Smithsonian Institution)

Herschel and other astronomers spent two years debating about whether it was a comet or a planet. In 1783, Herschel finally announced that Uranus was, in fact, a planet. But Uranus didn't receive its name until 1850. Herschel wanted to name it George's Star after King George III, but astronomers outside of England weren't cool with that.

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Ultimately, the German astronomer Johann Bode named it Uranus after the ancient Greek god of the sky. While the international astronomy community liked that name better than George's Star, the planet was hereby destined to forever be the butt of all solar system jokes.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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