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Uranus's irregular moons have elliptical and strongly inclined (mostly retrograde) orbits at large distances from the planet. [3] William Herschel discovered the first two moons, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. The other three ellipsoidal moons were discovered in 1851 by William Lassell (Ariel and Umbriel) and in 1948 by Gerard Kuiper . [1]
Titania (/ təˈtɑːniə, təˈteɪniə /), also designated Uranus III, is the largest moon of Uranus. At a diameter of 1,578 kilometres (981 mi) it is the eighth largest moon in the Solar System, with a surface area comparable to that of Australia. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, it is named after the queen of the fairies in ...
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It is a gaseous cyan -coloured ice giant. Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls "ice" or volatiles. The planet's atmosphere has a complex layered cloud structure and has the lowest minimum temperature (49 K (−224 °C; − ...
Before any more Uranian moons were discovered, William Lassell sometimes adopted Herschel's numbers where Titania and Oberon are respectively Uranus II and IV, [24] and sometimes called them respectively Uranus I and II. [25] After he discovered Ariel and Umbriel in 1851, Lassell numbered the four real Uranian satellites then known outward from ...
In his later career, Herschel discovered two moons of Saturn, Mimas [72] and Enceladus; [73] as well as two moons of Uranus, Titania and Oberon. [85] He did not give these moons their names; they were named by his son John in 1847 and 1852, respectively, after his death.
Miranda, also designated Uranus V, is the smallest and innermost of Uranus's five round satellites. It was discovered by Gerard Kuiper on 16 February 1948 at McDonald Observatory in Texas, and named after Miranda from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. [9] Like the other large moons of Uranus, Miranda orbits close to its planet's ...
botany. philosophy of science. Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH FRS (/ ˈhɜːrʃəl, ˈhɛər -/; [2] 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) [1] was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor and experimental photographer who invented the blueprint [3][4][5] and did botanical work.
The exploration of Uranus has, to date, been through telescopes and a lone probe by NASA 's Voyager 2 spacecraft, which made its closest approach to Uranus on January 24, 1986. Voyager 2 discovered 10 moons, studied the planet's cold atmosphere, and examined its ring system, discovering two new rings. It also imaged Uranus' five large moons ...