News: 0178814764

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

Astronomers Discover Hidden Moon Orbiting Uranus (sciencedaily.com)

(Friday August 22, 2025 @03:00AM (BeauHD) from the hide-and-seek dept.)


[1]alternative_right shares a report from ScienceDaily:

> Southwest Research Institute led a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) survey, [2]discovering a previously unknown tiny moon orbiting Uranus . A team led by SwRI's Dr. Maryame El Moutamid [3]discovered the small object in a series of images taken on Feb. 2, 2025, bringing Uranus' total moon count to 29. "As part of JWST's guest observer program, we found a previously unknown satellite of the ice giant, which has been provisionally designated S/2025 U 1," said El Moutamid, a lead scientist in SwRI's Solar System Science and Exploration Division in Boulder, Colorado. "This object, by far the smallest object discovered to date, was detected in a series of 10 long exposures obtained by the Near-Infrared Camera."

>

> Located in the outer solar system, Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Known as "the sideways planet" for its extreme axial tilt, the cyan-colored ice giant has a deep atmosphere composed of hydrogen, helium and methane. Scientists think Uranus' larger moons are roughly equal parts water ice and silicate rock. "Assuming that the new moon has an albedo comparable to other nearby satellites, this object is probably around six miles (10 km) in diameter," El Moutamid said. "It is well below the detection threshold for the Voyager 2 cameras."



[1] https://slashdot.org/~alternative_right

[2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/08/250821004237.htm

[3] https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/webb/2025/08/19/new-moon-discovered-orbiting-uranus-using-nasas-webb-telescope/



Too easy... (Score:3)

by sjames ( 1099 )

n/t

Re: (Score:2)

by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 )

The original headline was something like "Uranus mooned James Webb" or somesuch.

Re: (Score:2)

by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 )

I've had teachers that presumably didn't like the pronunciation "your anus" and instead pronounced it as "urine us" (which sounds like urine, and opens it up to all different jokes and didn't fix the problem.

This is the one planet that doesn't have Roman, but a Greek name, and is pronounced, more properly as "Oh roo nuss". If they would just use this pronunciation it would eliminate all of these silly jokes.

It might be orbiting uranus (Score:2)

by FudRucker ( 866063 )

But its not orbiting myanus

Please don't name it Dingleberry (Score:2)

by outsider007 ( 115534 )

Anything else will do.

Re: (Score:3)

by bleedingobvious ( 6265230 )

Dingleberry McDingleberryFace

Re: (Score:2)

by quintessencesluglord ( 652360 )

pIraQSIS?

Re: (Score:1)

by zenlessyank ( 748553 )

Goddammit!! Why you gotta piss all over my parade and steal my comment before I could type it?!?!

That's no moon... (Score:2)

by YuppieScum ( 1096 )

It wasn't hidden, it's recently arrived.

Re: (Score:2)

by evanh ( 627108 )

I personally don't think such small lumpy rocks should be classed as moons anyway. If they don't have something close to the mass required for hydrostatic equilibrium then I'd call them asteroids.

Re: (Score:2)

by bleedingobvious ( 6265230 )

> If they don't have something close to the mass required for hydrostatic equilibrium then I'd call them asteroids.

Asteroids don't orbit planets

They typically orbit stars... unless they've gone rogue, taken to dressing in a threatening manner and carrying a switchblade.

Re: (Score:2)

by h33t l4x0r ( 4107715 )

M-O-O-N that spells Tom Cullen. And Dingleberry.

That would be (Score:2)

by zawarski ( 1381571 )

my balls.

What's next for James Webb? (Score:2)

by Random361 ( 6742804 )

Maybe next time it will capture footage of a mass ejection coming our of Uranus.

I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they
could do was to go away.