What Are the Names of Uranus’ Moons?

The names of Uranus’ moons are Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Mab, Belinda, Perdita, Puck, Cupid, Miranda, Francisco, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Caliban, Stephano, Trinculo, Sycorax, Margaret, Prospero, Setebos and Ferdinand. The moons are named after characters from William Shakespeare’s works and characters by Alexander Pope.

The moons of Uranus are divided into three categories: 13 inner moons, five major moons and nine irregular moons. The two largest of Uranus’ moons are Titania and Oberon. They were the first two discovered, and they were found in 1787 by William Herschel. In 1851, Ariel and Umbriel were discovered by William Lassel. The next moon discovered was Miranda, which was found by Gerard Kuiper in 1948. These five moons are large enough to be considered dwarf planets if they orbited the sun. They make up the major moons.

More of Uranus’ moons were discovered after NASA launched Voyager 2 in 1986. Voyager 2’s trip to Uranus tripled the number of the planet’s known moons. The Hubble Space Telescope, carried into orbit in 1990, allowed the last 12 inner moons of Uranus to be observed and studied. NASA suggests that these moons are captured asteroids, and some of them are likely to collide within 100 million years.