Miranda (moon)
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| Discovery | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discovered by | Gerard P. Kuiper | ||||||||
| Discovery date | February 16, 1948 | ||||||||
| Designations | |||||||||
| Pronunciation | /mᵻˈrændə/ mi-RAN-də | ||||||||
| Uranus V | |||||||||
| Adjectives | Mirandan, Mirandian | ||||||||
| Orbital characteristics | |||||||||
| 129390 km | |||||||||
| Eccentricity | 0.0013 | ||||||||
| 1.413479 d | |||||||||
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Average orbital speed
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6.66 km/s (calculated) | ||||||||
| Inclination | 4.232° (to Uranus's equator) | ||||||||
| Satellite of | Uranus | ||||||||
| Physical characteristics | |||||||||
| Dimensions | 480 × 468.4 × 465.8 km | ||||||||
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Mean radius
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235.8±0.7 km (0.03697 Earths) | ||||||||
| 700000 km2 | |||||||||
| Volume | 54835000 km3 | ||||||||
| Mass |
(6.59±0.75)×1019 kg (1.103×10−5 Earths) |
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Mean density
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1.20±0.15 g/cm3 | ||||||||
| 0.079 m/s2 | |||||||||
| 0.193 km/s | |||||||||
| synchronous | |||||||||
| 0° | |||||||||
| Albedo | 0.32 | ||||||||
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| 15.8 | |||||||||
(6.59±0.75)×1019 kg
Miranda or Uranus V is the smallest and innermost of Uranus's five round satellites. Like the other large moons of Uranus, Miranda orbits close to its planet's equatorial plane. Because Uranus orbits the Sun on its side, Miranda's orbit is perpendicular to the ecliptic and shares Uranus's extreme seasonal cycle. At just 470 km in diameter, Miranda is one of the smallest objects in the Solar System known to be in hydrostatic equilibrium (spherical under its own gravity)—only Saturn's moon Mimas is smaller.
Miranda has one of the most extreme and varied topographies of any object in the Solar System, including Verona Rupes, a 5- to 10-kilometer-high scarp that is the tallest cliff in the Solar System, and chevron-shaped tectonic features called coronae. The origin and evolution of this varied geology, the most of any Uranian satellite, are still not fully understood, and multiple hypotheses exist regarding Miranda's formation.
Miranda was discovered by Gerard Kuiper on 16 February 1948 at McDonald Observatory, and named after Miranda from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
The only close-up images of Miranda are from the Voyager 2 probe, which made observations of Miranda during its Uranus flyby in January 1986. During the flyby, Miranda's southern hemisphere pointed towards the Sun, so only that part was studied.
Miranda was discovered on 16 February 1948 by planetary astronomer Gerard Kuiper using the McDonald Observatory's 82-inch (2,080 mm) Otto Struve Telescope. Its motion around Uranus was confirmed on 1 March 1948. It was the first satellite of Uranus discovered in nearly 100 years. Kuiper elected to name the object "Miranda" after the character in Shakespeare's The Tempest, because the four previously discovered moons of Uranus, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon, had all been named after characters of Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. However, the previous moons had been named specifically after fairies, whereas Miranda was a human. Subsequently discovered satellites of Uranus were named after Shakespearean characters, whether fairies or not.
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Wikipedia