Moons of Uranus

**This page/section has been marked for fixing under Project/Paraphrase**
This page is to be fixed and paraphrased under the project's guidelines. Please do not remove this tag until the project has ended.Uranus, the 7th planet from the sun has a total of 27 natural satellites. This is a complete list of natural satellites.

**As with all lists, it will always remain incomplete. Please take some time to help complete the list. We will really appreciate your contribution!**

Moons of Mars

## Groups

### Inner Moons

As of 2020, Uranus has 13 inner moons. All of their orbits lie inside Miranda's orbit. All of the inner moons are intimately connected with the rings of Uranus, which probably resulted from the fragmentation of one or several small inner moons. The two innermost moons (Cordelia and Ophelia) are shepherds of Uranus's ε ring, whereas the small moon Mab is a source of Uranus's outermost μ ring. There may be two additional small (2–7 km in radius) undiscovered shepherd moons located about 100 km exterior to Uranus's α and β rings.

At 162 km, Puck is the largest of the inner moons of Uranus and the only one imaged by *Voyager 2* in any detail. Puck and Mab are the two outermost inner satellites of Uranus. All inner moons are dark objects; their geometrical albedo is less than 10%. They are composed of water ice contaminated with a dark material, probably radiation-processed organics.

The small inner moons constantly perturb each other. The system is chaotic and apparently unstable. Simulations show that the moons may perturb each other into crossing orbits, which may eventually result in collisions between the moons. Desdemona may collide with Cressida within the next million years, and Cupid will likely collide with Belinda in the next 10 million years; Perdita and Juliet may be involved in later collisions. Because of this, the rings and inner moons may be under constant flux, with moons colliding and re-accreting on short timescales.

### Large Moons

Uranus has five major moons: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. They range in diameter from 472 km for Miranda to 1578 km for Titania. All these moons are relatively dark objects: their geometrical albedo varies between 30 and 50%, whereas their Bond albedo is between 10 and 23%. Umbriel is the darkest moon and Ariel the brightest. The masses of the moons range from 6.7 × 1019 kg (Miranda) to 3.5 × 1021 kg (Titania). For comparison, the Moon has a mass of 7.5 × 1022 kg. The major moons of Uranus are thought to have formed in the accretion disc, which existed around Uranus for some time after its formation or resulted from a large impact suffered by Uranus early in its history. This view is supported by their large thermal inertia, a surface property they share with dwarf planets like Pluto and Haumea. It differs strongly from the thermal behaviour of the Uranian irregular moons that is comparable to classical trans-Neptunian objects. This suggests a separate origin.

All major moons comprise approximately equal amounts rock and ice, except Miranda, which is made primarily of ice. The ice component may include ammonia and carbon dioxide. Their surfaces are heavily cratered, though all of them (except Umbriel) show signs of endogenic resurfacing in the form of lineaments (canyons) and, in the case of Miranda, ovoid race-track like structures called coronae. Extensional processes associated with upwelling diapirs are likely responsible for the origin of the coronae. Ariel appears to have the youngest surface with the fewest impact craters, while Umbriel's appears oldest. A past 3:1 orbital resonance between Miranda and Umbriel and a past 4:1 resonance between Ariel and Titania are thought to be responsible for the heating that caused substantial endogenic activity on Miranda and Ariel. One piece of evidence for such a past resonance is Miranda's unusually high orbital inclination (4.34°) for a body so close to the planet. The largest Uranian moons may be internally differentiated, with rocky cores at their centers surrounded by ice mantles. Titania and Oberon may harbor liquid water oceans at the core/mantle boundary. The major moons of Uranus are airless bodies. For instance, Titania was shown to possess no atmosphere at a pressure larger than 10–20 nanobar.

The path of the Sun in the local sky over the course of a local day during Uranus's and its major moons' summer solstice is quite different from that seen on most other Solar System worlds. The major moons have almost exactly the same rotational axial tilt as Uranus (their axes are parallel to that of Uranus). The Sun would appear to follow a circular path around Uranus's celestial pole in the sky, at the closest about 7 degrees from it, during the hemispheric summer. Near the equator, it would be seen nearly due north or due south (depending on the season). At latitudes higher than 7°, the Sun would trace a circular path about 15 degrees in diameter in the sky, and never set during the hemispheric summer, moving to a position over the celestial equator during the Uranian equinox, and then invisible below the horizon during the hemispheric winter.

### Irregular Moons

As of 2005 Uranus is known to have nine irregular moons, which orbit it at a distance much greater than that of Oberon, the furthest of the large moons. All the irregular moons are probably captured objects that were trapped by Uranus soon after its formation. The diagram illustrates the orbits of those irregular moons discovered so far. The moons above the X axis are prograde, those beneath are retrograde. The radius of the Uranian Hill sphere is approximately 73 million km.

Uranus's irregular moons range in size from 120–200 km (Sycorax) to about 20 km (Trinculo). Unlike Jupiter's irregulars, Uranus's show no correlation of axis with inclination. Instead, the retrograde moons can be divided into two groups based on axis/orbital eccentricity. The inner group includes those satellites closer to Uranus (a < 0.15 rH) and moderately eccentric (~0.2), namely Francisco, Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo. The outer group (a > 0.15 rH) includes satellites with high eccentricity (~0.5): Sycorax, Prospero, Setebos, and Ferdinand.

The intermediate inclinations 60° < i < 140° are devoid of known moons due to the Kozai instability. In this instability region, solar perturbations at apoapsis cause the moons to acquire large eccentricities that lead to collisions with inner satellites or ejection. The lifetime of moons in the instability region is from 10 million to a billion years.

Margaret is the only known irregular prograde moon of Uranus, and it currently has the most eccentric orbit of any moon in the Solar System, though Neptune's moon Nereid has a higher mean eccentricity. As of 2008, Margaret's eccentricity is 0.7979.

## List

Key
(retrograde)

## Gallery

TitaniaStephanoSetebosUmbrielSycoraxProsperoOpheliaOberonMabJulietMargaretPortiaPerditaMirandaPuckCordeliaCressidaBiancaCupidBelindaCalibanDesdemonaFerdinandAriel