Uranus was the first planet discovered with a telescope.

On March 13, 1781, German-born British astronomer William Herschel observed a faint object in the constellation of Gemini. Using a 15-centimeter reflecting telescope he built himself, he noticed the object appeared as a disk rather than a point of light. This led him to initially report it to the Royal Society as a comet, as no new planets had been identified since antiquity.Further observations by Herschel and other astronomers like Anders Johan Lexell revealed the object had a nearly circular orbit far beyond Saturn. Lexell calculated that the object was approximately 19 times further from the Sun than Earth is. This distance and the lack of a cometary tail confirmed that Herschel had found the seventh planet from the Sun. This discovery was revolutionary because it was the first time the solar system's boundaries were expanded since the era of ancient Greece.The discovery earned Herschel a permanent fellowship in the Royal Society and a royal pension from King George III. Herschel originally wanted to name the planet Georgium Sidus, or George's Star, in honor of the King. However, the scientific community eventually settled on the name Uranus, following the tradition of naming planets after figures from classical mythology. Uranus remains unique as the only planet named after a Greek deity rather than a Roman one.