Desdemona (moon)

Desdemona is one of the smaller moons that orbits the planet Uranus. It was discovered in 1986 when scientists looked at pictures sent back by the spacecraft Voyager 2. At first, it was called S/1986 U 6 before being named Desdemona, after the wife of Othello in a play by William Shakespeare.

Desdemona is part of a group of moons called the Portia group. This group includes other moons such as Bianca, Cressida, Juliet, and Portia. These moons share similar paths around Uranus and have similar brightening and darkening patterns when viewed from far away. We know that Desdemona is about 90 kilometers long and 54 kilometers wide, but there is still much we do not know about it.

In the pictures from Voyager 2, Desdemona looks stretched out, with one side longer than the other, always pointing toward Uranus. Its surface appears in a gray color. Scientists think that, in the very distant future—perhaps in the next 100 million years—Desdemona might bump into one of its nearby moons, such as Cressida or Juliet. There is also a minor planet named 666 Desdemona.