[Monox D. I-Fly]

how do you know it is on its side? Who decides what is the top and what is the bottom.

Maybe it has the West Pole and East Pole instead of North and South.

[Colin2B]

how do you know it is on its side? Who decides what is the top and what is the bottom.

Maybe it has the West Pole and East Pole instead of North and South.

The axis of rotation determines what we call the poles.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

B... But... West Pole and East Pole sound more unique...

[Janus]

how do you know it is on its side? Who decides what is the top and what is the bottom.

Maybe it has the West Pole and East Pole instead of North and South.

The axis of rotation determines what we call the poles.

The geographic poles.   Uranus' North magnetic pole is tilted some 59 degrees to it axis of rotation,( compared to ~11 degrees for the Earth).  The dipole is also offset from the center of the planet by nearly 1/3 of the planet's radius.

[Colin2B]

The geographic poles. 

Yes, that’s what I was thinking given the reference to it being on it’s side.

[Bill S]

  Uranus: why is it on its side?

Because I'm not on my back.

[Colin2B]

@Monox D. I-Fly
The point @Janus makes is interesting. We usually define E & W relative to geographic poles, but in deciding which is N we take the one closest to the magnetic N. Fortunately in the case of Uranus the dipole is not perpendicular to the spin axis.