New Findings Indicate Uranus May Possess Extra Moons

New Findings Indicate Uranus May Possess Extra Moons

New Findings Indicate Uranus May Possess Extra Moons


The James Webb Space Telescope has revealed that the moon is situated nearly 35,000 miles from Uranus’s center, and its nearly circular trajectory has led researchers to speculate that this might be its formation site.

Prior to this finding, the oddly tilted planet Uranus was believed to host twenty-eight moons, including five prominent ones: Titania, Oberon, Ariel, Miranda, and Umbriel. This new discovery increases the known total of moons to twenty-nine. Researchers often refer to these as the “literary moons,” given that they are named after characters from works by Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. The newly found moon is now the 14th entity among the smaller moons that orbit inside the major ones.

Uranus’s latest moon lies just outside its transient rings, with scientists estimating its diameter to be approximately 6 miles, categorizing it as one of the tiniest moons. The minute size of this moon likely explains why it remained hidden, even during Voyager 2’s flyby in January 1986. “No other planet possesses as many diminutive inner moons as Uranus, and their intricate relationships with the rings suggest a tumultuous past that obscures the distinction between a ring system and a moon system,” stated research team member Matthew Tiscareno from the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California.

Researchers unveil that Uranus has 29 moons