On this date in 1948 Miranda, a moon of Uranus, was discovered. 10 things you might not know about Miranda:
Miranda was discovered by Gerard Kuiper on 16 February 1948 at McDonald Observatory in Texas using the McDonald Observatory's 82-inch (2,080 mm) Otto Struve Telescope.
The moon was named for the character Miranda in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. All the moons discovered before it were named after Fairies. Miranda was the first moon to be named after a human.
It’s also known as Uranus V.
It is the smallest (470 km in diameter) and the innermost (129,000 km from the planet surface) of the moons of Uranus.
Its orbital period is 34 hours, and, like our own moon it is tidally locked with the planet, meaning the same side is always facing the planet.
Pretty much everything we know about Miranda comes from the flyby of Uranus made by Voyager 2 on 25 January 1986.
Miranda is the least dense of Uranus's round satellites, which suggests a composition of more than 60% water ice. It has been speculated that methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide or nitrogen may also exist there in small concentrations.
All the main geographical features of Miranda are named after people or places in Shakespeare plays.
Verona Rupes, named for the Italian city where the plot of Romeo and Juliet takes place, is the highest cliff in the solar system, 5 to 10 km (6.2 miles) high.
It also has some rather rare features called coronae. The only other body in the solar system known to have them is Venus. They are oval shaped features thought to be caused by the swelling up of warm materials underneath.
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