Uranus has 27 moons, with five spherical ones named after Shakespearean characters. Most are discovered by ground-based telescopes and are made up of water ice, silicate rock, and methane ice. Uranus’ moons have geological features named after Shakespearean characters. Titania has a grand canyon, while Oberon has tall mountains and a cratered surface. Ariel is the brightest moon and left a shadow on Uranus in 2006.
Uranus, the seventh planet from the Sun, has 27 recognized moons, less than half the number orbiting Jupiter or Saturn. Five are massive enough to be spherical in shape: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. All of Uranus’ moons are named after characters from the works of Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. The smaller moons are named Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Cupid, Puck, Mab and many others. A certain section around Uranus, between its main rings and the orbit of the moon Miranda, is very crowded, with numerous small moons stuck in unstable orbits. Eventually these moons could collide with each other.
The moons of Uranus were only observed up close by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986. Otherwise, numerous moons of Uranus have been discovered by ground-based telescopes, but most appear as fuzzy dots. Uranus’s two largest moons, Titania and Oberon, were discovered by the same astronomer who discovered Uranus, the Briton William Herschel, in 1787. Ariel and Umbriel were then discovered by William Lassell in 1851 and these first four moons were named in 1852 by Herschel’s son John.
Uranus has an interesting array of moons, though not as rich or varied as those of Jupiter and Saturn. Uranus’ moon Miranda, with a diameter of 480 km, has some of the fuzziest surfaces in the Solar System, including the tallest cliff, Verona Rupes, with a height of 20 km (12 mi). The remaining four large moons have similar diameters, ranging from 1100 km (684 mi) to 1600 km (1000 mi). Most of these moons are made up of about 50% water ice, 30% silicate rock, and 20% methane ice. It’s all the methane in Uranus’ atmosphere that gives it and its companion planet Neptune their blue colors.
Many of Uranus’ moons have similar geological features: canyons, cliffs (rupees or escarpments), chasms (chasmata), and the ubiquitous craters. In the Uranian system, these are all place names or characters from the works of Pope or Shakespeare, with an emphasis on Shakespeare. Examples are Lear Crater and Hamlet Crater on Oberon.
Titania, the first moon discovered, has a grand canyon, among the largest in the Solar System, much larger than the 1.6 km (1 mile) deep Grand Canyon on Earth, and of the same class as Valles Marineris on Mars, which is up to at 7 km (4.3 mi). With a diameter of 1577 km (980 mi), Titania is the eighth largest moon in the Solar System.
Oberon, the second largest moon orbiting Uranus, has a very old cratered surface, mostly gray but with some large white spots on it. Unlike most of Uranus’ other moons, Oberon has tall mountains, including one about 6 km (3.7 mi) high. The crater floors of Oberon are covered with a dark material of unknown origin.
Ariel is the brightest moon of Uranus and is covered in craters that are slightly younger than those of the other large moons. In 2006, Ariel transited Uranus, leaving a shadow on the cloud tops. This event was observed using the Hubble Space Telescope.
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