Washington, D.C. [US], August 20 (ANI/WAM): NASA announced that the James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new, 29th satellite of Uranus, named S/2025 U1.
According to NASA, a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) identified the previously unknown moon during a Webb observation on February 2, 2025, expanding Uranus’s known satellite family to 29.
The newly discovered satellite is estimated to have a diameter of only about 10 kilometers. Its small size prevented NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft from spotting it during its 1986 flyby.
Maryame El Moutamid, a lead scientist in SwRI’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division, said, “It’s a small moon but a significant discovery, which is something that even NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft didn’t see during its flyby nearly 40 years ago.”
S/2025 U1 orbits Uranus at a distance of about 56,000 kilometers and will be given another name at a later stage.
About The Author
