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Titania (moon)

Titania
A round spherical body is almost fully illuminated. The surface has a mottled appearance with bright patches among relatively dark terrain. The terminator is located near the right edge. A large crater can be seen at the terminator in the upper half of the image. Another bright crater can be seen at the bottom. A large canyon runs from the darkness at the lower-right side to visible center of the body.
Voyager 2 image of Titania's southern hemisphere
Discovery
Discovered by William Herschel
Discovery date January 11, 1787
Designations
Pronunciation /tˈtnjə/ or /tˈtniə/
Uranus III
Adjectives Titanian
Orbital characteristics
435910 km
Eccentricity 0.0011
8.706234 d
Average orbital speed
3.64 km/s
Inclination 0.340° (to Uranus's equator)
Satellite of Uranus
Physical characteristics
Mean radius
788.4±0.6 km (0.1235 Earths)
7820000 km2
Volume 2065000000 km3
Mass (3.527±0.09)×1021 kg (5.908×10−4 Earths)
Mean density
1.711±0.005 g/cm³
0.379 m/s²
0.773 km/s
presumed synchronous
Albedo
  • 0.35 (geometrical)
  • 0.17 (Bond)
Surface temp. min mean max
solstice 60 K 70 ± 7 K 89 K
13.9
Atmosphere
Surface pressure
<1–2 mPa (10–20 nbar)
Composition by volume

Titania is the largest of the moons of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System at a diameter of 1,578 kilometres (981 mi). Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Titania is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Its orbit lies inside Uranus's magnetosphere.

Titania consists of approximately equal amounts of ice and rock, and is probably differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle. A layer of liquid water may be present at the core–mantle boundary. The surface of Titania, which is relatively dark and slightly red in color, appears to have been shaped by both impacts and endogenic processes. It is covered with numerous impact craters reaching up to 326 kilometres (203 mi) in diameter, but is less heavily cratered than Oberon, outermost of the five large moons of Uranus. Titania probably underwent an early endogenic resurfacing event which obliterated its older, heavily cratered surface. Titania's surface is cut by a system of enormous canyons and scarps, the result of the expansion of its interior during the later stages of its evolution. Like all major moons of Uranus, Titania probably formed from an accretion disk which surrounded the planet just after its formation.

Infrared spectroscopy conducted from 2001 to 2005 revealed the presence of water ice as well as frozen carbon dioxide on the surface of Titania, which in turn suggested that the moon may have a tenuous carbon dioxide atmosphere with a surface pressure of about 10 nanopascals (10−13 bar). Measurements during Titania's occultation of a star put an upper limit on the surface pressure of any possible atmosphere at 1–2 mPa (10–20 nbar).


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