Moons · Space Codex
Titania
About 1,600 km across, Titania is cut by fault valleys up to about 1,600 km long, signs that its crust once stretched as the interior changed.
Uranus's largest moon
At a glance
Key points
- Uranus's largest moon, about 1,600 km across
- Fault valleys nearly 1,600 km long
- Discovered by William Herschel in 1787
Surface
Voyager 2 imaged Titania almost 200 years after Herschel found it. A prominent system of fault valleys crosses the surface; their sharp walls suggest the crust cracked as the interior expanded, perhaps as water froze.
Exploration
Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited, passing on 24 January 1986. Uranus was near solstice, so only the southern hemispheres of its moons were in sunlight; the northern halves have never been seen up close.
What we still don't know
Whether a thin layer of liquid survives deep inside, which models allow for Uranus's largest moons.
Missions
- 1977–
The only spacecraft to visit Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989); interstellar since 5 Nov 2018.
First-hand · our 3D model
How we render it
Titania is a sphere wrapped in a global map built from USGS and NASA spacecraft mosaics. Voyager 2 imaged only one hemisphere, so the unseen side is a feathered procedural fill.
It is drawn at about 9.0% of Uranus's radius, enlarged from its true 3.1% so it stays visible. It orbits in Uranus's equatorial frame, inclined 0.1°, with a 8.71-day period kept in true ratio to its neighbours, and keeps one face towards Uranus.
Moon sizes and orbits are compressed so a whole system fits on screen, but never reordered: each moon is drawn at 0.72 × (true size ratio)^0.6 of its planet, capped so no large moon is drawn bigger than it really is, and orbit distances are log-compressed into a band that clears the planet's rings. Orbital periods keep their true ratios, every moon is tidally locked, and on lighter devices only the two largest moons of each planet are drawn.
Related entries
Sources
- JPL Solar System Dynamics: satellite physical parameters (opens in a new tab)
- JPL Solar System Dynamics: satellite mean orbital elements (opens in a new tab)
- NASA NSSDC Uranian Satellite Fact Sheet (opens in a new tab)
- NASA Science: Titania (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed against these sources. Built from public NASA, ESA and JPL data; not affiliated with or endorsed by any agency.