TITANIA (MOON)

'Titania'

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Discovery
Discovered by	William Herschel
Discovered in	January 11, 1787
Orbital characteristics
Semi-major axis	435,910 km
Mean radius	436,300 km
Eccentricity	0.0011
Orbital period	8.706 d
Inclination	0.340° (to Uranus' equator)
Is a satellite of	Uranus
Physical characteristics
Mean diameter	1577.8 km(0.1237 Earths)
Surface area	7,820,000 km²
Volume	2,057,000,000 km³
Mass	3.526 kg(5.9 Earths)
Mean density	1.72 g/cm³
Surface gravity	0.378 m/s2 (~0.039 g)
Escape velocity	0.77 km/s
Rotation period	synchronous
Axial tilt	zero
Albedo	0.27
Surface temp.	min mean max ? K ~60 K ? K
Atmospheric pressure

'Titania' is the largest moon of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System.

Contents

Discovery

Name and pronunciation

Physical characteristics

Occultation

See also

External links

Notes

Discovery

Titania was discovered on January 11, 1787 by William Herschel. He reported it and Oberon the same year.^[1] He later reported four more satellites, which turned out to be spurious.^[2]

Name and pronunciation

The names of Titania and the other four satellites of Uranus then known were suggested by Herschel's son John Herschel in 1852 at the request of William Lassell, who had discovered Ariel and Umbriel the year before.^[3] Lassell had earlier endorsed Herschel's 1847 naming scheme for the seven then-known satellites of Saturn and had named his newly-discovered eighth satellite Hyperion in accordance with Herschel's naming scheme in 1848.
All of the moons of Uranus are named for characters from Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. Titania was named after Titania, the Queen of the Faeries in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream''.
Shakespeare's character's name is sometimes pronounced , but are also used for the moon.
It is also designated 'Uranus III'.

Physical characteristics

So far the only close-up images of Titania are from the ''Voyager 2'' probe, which photographed the moon during its Uranus flyby in January, 1986. At the time of the flyby the southern hemisphere of the moon was pointed towards the Sun so only it was studied.
Although its interior composition is uncertain, one model suggests that Titania is composed of roughly 50% water ice, 30% silicate rock, and 20% methane-related organic compounds. A major surface feature is a huge canyon that dwarfs the scale of the Grand Canyon on Earth and is in the same class as the Valles Marineris on Mars or Ithaca Chasma on Saturn's moon Tethys.
Scientists recognise the following geological features on Titania:

★ Chasmata (chasms)

★ Craters

★ Rupes (scarps)

Occultation

On September 8, 2001, Titania occulted a faint star; this was an opportunity to both refine its diameter and ephemeris, and to detect any extant atmosphere. The data revealed no atmosphere to a surface pressure of 0.03 microbars; if it exists, it would have to be far thinner than that of Triton or Pluto.^[4][5]

See also

★ List of geological features on Titania

★ Titania in fiction

External links

★ Titania Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration

Notes

1. Herschel, "An Account of the Discovery of Two Satellites Revolving Round the Georgian Planet", ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London'', Vol. 77, pp. 125-129, 1787; and "On George's Planet and its satellites", ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London'', Vol. 78, pp. 364-378, 1788.
2. "On the Discovery of Four Additional Satellites of the Georgium Sidus; The Retrograde Motion of Its Old Satellites Announced; And the Cause of Their Disappearance at Certain Distances from the Planet Explained", ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London'', Vol. 88, pp. 47-79, 1798.
3. http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/AN.../0034//0000169.000.html ''Adsabs.harvard.edu'' Retrieved on 05-19-07
4. http://www.obspm.fr/actual/nouvelle/mar02/titania.en.shtml ''Obspm.fr'' Retrieved on 05-19-07
5. http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/~titania/results.html ''Lesia.obspm.fr'' Retrieved on 05-19-07