The Planet of Doubt Jupiter and Saturn and on the surface of Uranus itself. At the time "The Planet of Doubt" takes place at the turn of the 22nd century, the limited range of the spaceships ensures that Uranus can only be reached from the American base on Titan when Saturn reaches conjunction with Uranus, an event that occurs once every forty years. The Young expedition explored the planet's south pole in 2060; now Hammond takes his ship, the "Gaea", to the north pole. Finding an ocean at the north pole, Hammond sends the "Gaea" spiraling southeast until they reach land. They find the
Moons of Uranus a circular path about 15 degrees in diameter in the sky, and never set. As of 2005 Uranus is known to have nine irregular moons, which orbit it at a distance much greater than that of Oberon, the furthest of the large moons. All the irregular moons are probably captured objects that were trapped by Uranus soon after its formation. The diagram illustrates the orbits of those irregular moons discovered so far. The moons above the X axis are prograde, those beneath are retrograde. The radius of the Uranian Hill sphere is approximately 73 million km. Uranus's irregular moons range