In 1690, John Flamsteed thought it was a star in the constellation Taurus. Herschel wanted to name the planet after King George but settled on Uranus. Most of what we know of Uranus came from Voyager 2 that flew within 50,000 miles of the tops of the clouds in January of 1986. It took a multitude of pictures of it and its moons. There are no plans to send another spacecraft to study it in the near future.
