Many moons ago Uranus itself had not even been discovered; never mind all of the moons orbiting around it. The moons are still popping up! The Solar System seems to be losing planets, but the planets that still have their status as planets are gaining moons like there’s no tomorrow. Of course, planets like the Earth are not going to acquire new moons, but the planets that are farther away still have new discoveries waiting for us here on Earth. For example, it was recently decided that Pluto is not actually a planet—too bad for everyone whose favorite planet was Pluto. Likewise, just when you thought you had Uranus’s moons memorized, a few more pop up.

The question many are asking now is if no one even knew that Pluto wasn’t a planet (and some experts still maintain that it is, indeed a planet) how sure can we be of the number of moons that Saturn, Uranus or Neptune actually have? Since these moons are, in some cases, much smaller than Pluto, how can astronomers be certain of their existence and their composition? Granted, existence is a much easier question to answer than composition, but both questions deserve lots of research and time. Of course, astronomers across Earth are enthusiastically seeking new research grants. Some people thought in the mid-60s that as soon as a flag was planted on the moon the hype and the fervor around astronomy would calm down. Of course, that has far from been the case. More and more satellites are bringing civilians and NASA specialists alike a multitude of new knowledge in the form of pictures from very far away places. Like many other things in modern society, having more pictures and more information is not fulfilling the need; it is making the need grow larger and larger.

At last count, Uranus has at least 27 moons. This is quite impressive when we consider that the Earth has, of course, only one moon and when we consider that Uranus’s largest moon (Titania) is only half the size that the Earth’s moon is. That means that there are more than a couple dozen moon-lets orbiting around Uranus; it seems a wonder that they don’t crash into one another at some point in their orbits. One of the ‘discovered’ moons of Uranus has not yet been given official status as a moon because astronomers cannot agree on whether or not it is actually a moon. Either way, the amount of moons is high.

Although Uranus’s moons may be smaller than the Earth’s moon and much smaller than the Earth itself, some of its moons exhibit truly mysterious and fascinating phenomena. For example, Miranda has a cliff face of 12 miles (more than twice the height of Mount Everest). This is impressive on its own, but when it’s considered in light of the relative size of Miranda compared to the Earth—the size of this cliff face is just beyond belief. Miranda is one of Uranus’s small moons. Astronomers have figured out that if this cliff face on the surface of Miranda were scaled (if Miranda were scaled up to the size of the Earth) the cliff face (12 miles) would reach all the way into, from the Earth’s surface, the area where spacecraft orbit the Earth.

The story of Uranus’s moons is not a simple one, not in number and not in features. In addition, when you consider what little is actually known about Uranus’s moons at present due to the sheer distance from here to there, it is obvious that there are many more astounding surprises just waiting to be uncovered.

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