Sage-Tips

What planets moons are named after Shakespeare characters?

SHEIR: There are 27 known moons of Uranus. All but two are named after characters from Shakespeare. There’s Ophelia, there’s Sycorax and Desdemona, there’s one called Perdita, and on and on.

Who are the moons named after?

They include Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, and were all discovered by Galileo Galilei and named in his honor. The names of the moons, which are derived from the lovers of Zeus in Greek mythology, were prescribed by Simon Marius soon after Galileo discovered them in 1610.

How did Oberon Moon get its name?

Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Oberon is named after the mythical king of the fairies who appears as a character in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Its orbit lies partially outside Uranus’s magnetosphere.

Which planet has a moon called Juliet?

Uranus
Juliet is an inner satellite of Uranus. It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 3 January 1986, and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 2. It is named after the heroine of William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. It is also designated Uranus XI.

What is Uranus named after?

Ultimately, German astronomer Johann Elert Bode (whose observations helped to establish the new object as a planet) named Uranus after an ancient Greek god of the sky. Bode argued that as Saturn was the father of Jupiter, the new planet should be named for the father of Saturn.

Which planet in the solar system is named after a female figure?

Venus
Orbital oddball. The only planet named after a female figure, Venus is a celestial oddball.

Who are the planets named after?

All of the planets, except for Earth, were named after Greek and Roman gods and godesses. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus and Mercury were given their names thousands of years ago. The other planets were not discovered until much later, after telescopes were invented.

Why do other planets moons have names?

When humanity first learned of other moons orbiting the planets in our solar system, one of the primary reasons they were given names was to differentiate them from the Moon, which, according to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the entity tasked with naming every celestial body in the night sky, is still the …

What is Uranus biggest moon called?

Titania
Oberon and Titania are the largest Uranian moons, and were first to be discovered—by William Herschel in 1787. William Lassell, who had been first to see a moon orbiting Neptune, discovered the next two, Ariel and Umbriel.

What are the moons of Uranus named after characters from Shakespeare?

Uranus’ moons are named after characters from the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. To date 27 moons have been discovered around Uranus, those named after characters from Shakespeare include Titania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Ariel (The Tempest),…

How did the moons of the planets get their names?

The names of moons orbiting planets are also influenced by mythology. This is all except for one planet. The moons orbiting Uranus are named after characters in plays, mostly after characters in plays written by William Shakespeare. Why would you name moons after characters in a play though?

Should the planets be named after Shakespearean characters?

To be named after Shakespearean characters, the planets would have to be discovered after Shakespeare’s time. Out to the planet Saturn, all of the inner planets are visible to the naked eye, were known to the ancients and named well before the Bard of Avon had an opportunity to put quill to paper.

What is the name of the 5th moon?

In 1949, the fifth moon, Miranda, was named by its discoverer Gerard Kuiper after a thoroughly mortal character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.