Skip to main content

Astronomy (thesaurus)

Search from vocabulary

Concept information

solar system > natural satellite > Uranus satellite

Preferred term

Uranus satellite  

Definition

  • Uranus, the seventh planet of the Solar System, has 27 known moons, most of which are named after characters that appear in, or are mentioned in, the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. Uranus's moons are divided into three groups: thirteen inner moons, five major moons, and nine irregular moons. The inner and major moons all have prograde orbits, while orbits of the irregulars are mostly retrograde. The inner moons are small dark bodies that share common properties and origins with Uranus's rings. The five major moons are ellipsoidal, indicating that they reached hydrostatic equilibrium at some point in their past (and may still be in equilibrium), and four of them show signs of internally driven processes such as canyon formation and volcanism on their surfaces. The largest of these five, Titania, is 1,578 km in diameter and the eighth-largest moon in the Solar System, about one-twentieth the mass of the Earth's Moon. The orbits of the regular moons are nearly coplanar with Uranus's equator, which is tilted 97.77° to its orbit. Uranus's irregular moons have elliptical and strongly inclined (mostly retrograde) orbits at large distances from the planet. (Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Uranus)

Broader concept

Entry terms

  • Uranian satellite

In other languages

URI

http://data.loterre.fr/ark:/67375/MDL-LL4V6FGZ-8

Download this concept: