Titania
Moon· orbits Uranus
Titania is the largest moon of Uranus — an icy, cratered world cut by enormous canyons (Messina Chasmata) that stretch over 1,500 km.
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Key facts
Mass
3.40 × 10²¹ kg
0.0463 Moon masses
Radius
789 km
45% of our Moon's radius
Surface gravity
0.365 m/s²
4% of Earth's gravity
Day length
8.7 days
Orbit around Uranus
8.71 Earth days
Science
Physical
- Mass
- 3.40 × 10²¹ kg · 0.0463 Moon masses
- JPL / IAU mean radii; spacecraft-tracked GM where measured
- Radius
- 789 km · 45% of our Moon's radius
- JPL SSD Planetary Satellite Physical Parameters (mean radius)
- Density
- 1,653 kg/m³ · 1.7× water
- Computed from mass and radius
- Surface gravity
- 0.365 m/s² · 4% of Earth's gravity
- Computed from mass and radius
- Escape velocity
- 758 m/s · 7% of Earth's escape velocity
- Computed from mass and radius
Orbit around Uranus
- Distance from Uranus
- 436,298 km
- From JPL orbital elements
- Orbital period
- 8.7 days
- From JPL orbital elements
- Eccentricity
- 0.002
- From JPL orbital elements
- Inclination to the J2000 equator
- 0.10 °
- From JPL orbital elements
Rotation
- Rotation period
- 8.7 days
- Tidal locking
- Tidally locked to its parent
Temperature
- Mean
- 70 K (-203 °C)
Composition
- Bulk composition
- About equal parts water ice and rock, with carbon-dioxide ice; possibly a thin subsurface ocean.
Radiation & temperature
- Insolation
- 0.00265 S⊕ · 1/378 of the sunlight Earth receives
- Computed from the distance to the Sun (inverse-square; Earth's sunlight = 1), before any atmosphere.
- Bond albedo
- 0.17 · reflects 17% of incoming sunlight
- Equilibrium temperature
- 60 K (-213 °C)
- Computed from albedo + distance from the Sun (airless black body)
- Measured mean temperature
- 70 K (-203 °C)
- Greenhouse warming
- +10 K
- Measured temperature minus the airless equilibrium — the greenhouse effect
Discovery & history
- Discovered
- January 11, 1787
- By
- William Herschel
- Method
- Visual discovery (telescopic)
- Name
- Titania, queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'.
Herschel discovered Titania, the largest moon of Uranus, in 1787 — six years after he found Uranus itself. Voyager 2's 1986 flyby revealed enormous fault valleys, including Messina Chasmata, stretching some 1,500 km across its icy face.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image