NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Discovers Uranus' 29th Moon 'S/2025 U1'

NASA has discovered Uranus' 29th moon S/2025 U1 with the James Webb Space Telescope. Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third largest planet in our solar system. It is called the "ice giant" because of its water composition.

• NASA has announced that the James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new, 29th moon of Uranus, named S/2025 U1. According to NASA, a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) identified this moon on February 02, 2025, increasing the number of the planet's known satellite family to 29.
• Saturn ranks at the top in terms of most satellites with 274. In March 2025, astronomers confirmed the discovery of 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, bringing the total to 274.

The International Astronomical Union

• will decide on an official name for the satellite. So far, all of Uranus' moons have been named after works by Shakespeare or Alexander Pope.
• The International Astronomical Union (IAU) was founded in 1919. The focal point of its activities is the IAU Secretariat, run by the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, France.

S/2025 U1 Characteristics

• The moon is estimated to be only about 10 kilometers in diameter. And it orbits the planet at a distance of about 56,000 kilometers.
• This tiny body, about six miles wide, was not visible during Voyager 2's flyby in 1986 and was too faint for previous telescopes. S/2025 U1 orbits Uranus between Ophelia and Bianca.
• Uranus is surrounded by 13 narrow rings. Some scientists believe that their shape was created by small "shepherd" moons, whose gravity keeps the material in place.

Voyager 2

• NASA's Voyager-2 has become the second man-made instrument in history to reach the far end of the solar system.
• Voyager 2 was launched on August 20, 1977, while Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977. Voyager 2 is NASA's longest running mission.
• Voyager 1 crossed this boundary only in 2012. According to NASA, at present Voyager 2 is 18 billion km away from Earth.
• Both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are still inside the solar system, for the time being they will not go out of it even in the near future. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited all four gas giant planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

James Webb Space Telescope:

• This telescope is the result of an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency, which was launched in December, 2021.
• It is currently at a point in space known as the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, about 1.5 million km from Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Named after Italian-French mathematician Josephi-Louis Lagrange.
• It is the largest, most powerful infrared space telescope ever built. It is the successor to the Hubble Telescope.