Uranus is a distant, marginal possibility in the Eighth Men’s effort to preserve human life as the Sun approaches a catastrophic transformation. Neptune is judged the likelier refuge and becomes the destination of a human settlement; Uranus’s significance is instead defined by what it might offer, and by the cosmic danger that later passes it by.

A Possible Refuge

The Eighth Men discover that the Sun is approaching the critical stage at which it will collapse into a dense, faintly radiating remnant. They predict that, when the change begins, the Sun will flare and expand so prodigiously that life will become impossible on every planet except, perhaps, Uranus and, more probably, Neptune. Uranus therefore enters the calculations as a possible haven, but not a secure one: the forecast gives it only a qualified chance of supporting life.

The same astronomical crisis makes the search for refuge urgent. The Eighth Men begin preparing Mercury for a later migration, but a newly detected volume of non-luminous gas is calculated to be approaching the Sun on a collision course. This discovery makes the planned response futile and shifts attention to the planets that might survive the Sun’s expansion. The evidence does not describe a settlement on Uranus; instead, Neptune becomes the focus of the effort to carry human life forward.

Neptune Preferred

The contrast between Uranus and Neptune is one of probability rather than certainty. Uranus is named as a possible exception to the otherwise uninhabitable planets, while Neptune is identified as the more likely place where life could persist. Even Neptune presents severe obstacles: its atmosphere is unsuitable, its gravity would make human bodies an intolerable burden, and it remains excessively cold until after the collision.

The Eighth Men ultimately prepare Neptune by sending Ether ships to initiate chemical changes in its atmosphere and by producing energy to warm a survivable area. They establish specially designed vegetation there and transport the Ninth Men, a human species made for the new world. Uranus remains outside this account of migration: it is part of the imagined range of possible refuges, but no comparable preparation or human settlement there is reported.

Outside the Dark Intruder’s Track

After the Neptune settlement is complete, the dark stranger from space nearly collides with Neptune. At that point Uranus and Jupiter are well outside its path, while Saturn is not: Saturn is engulfed along with its rings and satellites, and the resulting incandescence precedes the intruder’s later disruption of planetary orbits. The account thus places Uranus beyond the immediate destruction that overtakes Saturn, without describing any direct effect on Uranus.

Uranus’s role remains deliberately limited. It is first a tentative answer to the threat posed by the Sun’s expansion, then a planet recorded as outside the dark body’s track. The human future is secured, provisionally, through Neptune instead; Uranus marks the edge of the alternatives considered and the vastness of the danger they must navigate.