Uranus and neptune size comparison

QuestionEdit

Hi, I was always of the understanding that Uranus was slightly bigger than Neptune but then I saw a History channel program which showed Neptune considerably bigger than Uranus. I figured it was obviously not to scale but I looked around online to make sure I was right that Uranus was bigger but found mixed answers on other answers sites with some answers both ways. On the wikipedia Neptune article it says "Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 Earth masses and not as dense.[12]"... Could you clear this up? Thanks.

AnswerEdit

MASS is different than SIZE.

Uranus is about 32,000 miles across. Neptune is about 31,000 miles across.

However, the Mass of Neptune is more.

MASS, to keep it simple is the amount of matter IN an object. For example, a Ping Pong ball would have less Mass than a Meatball even though they are the same size.

So as far as the planets, Uranus is bigger, but not by much!

Steve