Desdemona (moon)

Desdemona is an inner satellite of Uranus. It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 13 January 1986, and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 6.<ref name="IAUC 4164" /> Desdemona is named after the wife of Othello in William Shakespeare's play Othello. It is also designated Uranus X.<ref name="Gazetteer" />

Desdemona belongs to Portia Group of satellites, which also includes Bianca, Cressida, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda, and Perdita.<ref name="Karkoschka, Hubble 2001" /> These satellites have similar orbits and photometric properties.<ref name="Karkoschka, Hubble 2001" /> Other than its orbit,<ref name="Jacobson 1998" /> size of 90 × 54 km,<ref name="Karkoschka, Voyager 2001" /> and geometric albedo of 0.08,<ref name="Karkoschka, Hubble 2001" /> virtually nothing is known about Desdemona.

In Voyager 2 imagery, Desdemona appears as an elongated object, with its major axis pointing towards Uranus. The ratio of axes of Desdemona's prolate spheroid is 0.6 ± 0.3.<ref name="Karkoschka, Voyager 2001" /> Its surface is grey in color.<ref name="Karkoschka, Voyager 2001" />

Desdemona may collide with one of its neighboring moons Cressida or Juliet within the next 100 million years.<ref name="Duncan Lissauer 1997" />

See also

• Moons of Uranus

External links

• Desdemona Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration
• Uranus' Known Satellites (by Scott S. Sheppard)