San Antonio’s Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is over the moon about its latest discovery. Leading a James Webb Space Telescope Survey, scientists from the foundation have discovered a new satellite orbiting Uranus, now the 29th known moon of the ice giant.
SwRI lead scientist Maryame El Moutamid observed the moon, by far Uranus’ smallest, using images taken in February by the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope. The team estimates that the object is around six miles in diameter, well below the detection threshold for Voyager 2‘s cameras.
The new moon is at the edge of Uranus’ inner rings, approximately 35,000 miles from its center in the planet’s equatorial plane, between the orbits of Ophelia and Bianca. Scientists generally believe that Uranus’ larger moons are a mixture of water ice and silicate rock.
The Voyager 2 probe is the only satellite to visit the cyan-colored celestial body, known as the “sideways planet” for its extreme axial tilt. In January 1986, it was able to get within 50,000 miles of Uranus’ cloud tops, documenting rings and several small satellites, including 10 previously unknown moons.
The SwRI team was able to use the telescope as part of the General Observer program. The initiative allows global researchers to access the observatory’s data in 12-hour increments. In August 2024, University of Texas San Antonio academics were selected to study supermassive black holes.
El Moutamid says the newly discovered object will be provisionally designated as S/2025 U 1 while the team chooses a common name. Uranus’ “literary” moons, including major bodies Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Ariel, and Miranda, pay homage to William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope characters.
“With so many of Uranus’ moons named for Shakespearean characters, our team is getting a lot of culture trying to figure out what to name our new discovery,” El Moutamid said in a release.