Ariel (Astronomy)
In astronomy, one of planet Uranus' moons.
Named after a mischievous airy spirit in Shakespeare's play, The Tempest, Ariel was discovered in 1851 by William Lassell (William Herschel, the discoverer of Titania and Oberon, claimed at the end of the 18th century that he had observed four additional moons of Uranus, but his observations were not confirmed and are now thought to be spurious), and is the brightest moon of Uranus. Its frozen surface is a mixture of craters and rift valleys hundreds of kilometers long and more than 6 miles deep.
Most everything we know about this moon was discovered by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986. Astronomers believe that some sort of process has reshaped its surface, because Ariel's canyon floors appear as though they have been smoothed by some liquid flow. It is speculated that these flows could have been of ammonia, methane or even carbon monoxide.
Ariel has no detectable atmosphere and no magnetic field, which added to its other characteristics makes it a very inhospitable world for beings such as ourselves.
Other facts and figures about Ariel:
-- Distance from Uranus: 190,945 km.
-- Equatorial Radius: 581.1 x 577.9 x 577.7 km. -- Mass: 1,350,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg. -- Orbit Period (Length of Year): 2.52037935 Earth days. -- Orbital Eccentricity: 0.0034. -- Orbital Inclination to Ecliptic: 0.3 degree.
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Source: NASA.
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