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August 19, 2025<\/p>\n
2 min read<\/p>\n
NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope Discovers New Moon of Uranus<\/p>\n
Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have spotted a moon nestled near Uranus\u2019s rings that\u2019s so small you could walk around it<\/p>\n
By Andrea Tamayo edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier<\/span><\/p>\n An image of Uranus taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) vividly shows the planet and its rings, as well as many of its moons. JWST images have now revealed a 29th moon orbiting the planet that is not visible here.<\/p>\n NASA\/UPI\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n Scientists have discovered a new, elusive moon around Uranus, making it the 29th natural satellite known to orbit the ice giant.<\/p>\n The research team that made the discovery estimates that the moon, dubbed S\/2025 U1 for now (at least, until the International Astronomical Union assigns an official name), is just 10 kilometers, or six miles, across, making it particularly small. \u201cI could walk around this moon,\u201d says Heidi Hammel, a planetary scientist and astrophysicist, who was not involved in the research.<\/p>\n In 1986 Voyager 2 flew within 81,800 km of Uranus\u2019s cloud tops and gave humans their first close-up glimpse of this giant planet. The spacecraft returned with images of 11 new moons, on top of the five that were already known. Since Voyager, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes have spotted other tiny moons\u2014ones as little 12 to 16 km in diameter. But \u201cthis one was so small and so faint and so close to the bright ring system around Uranus that we missed it,\u201d Hammel says.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n Astronomers using NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope discovered a new moon orbiting Uranus in images taken by Webb\u2019s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). This composite image shows the moon, designated S\/2025 U1, as well as 13 of the 28 other known moons orbiting the planet.<\/p>\n NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SwRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)<\/p>\n A team led by the Southwest Research Institute detected the moon in images captured by the high-resolution Near-Infrared Camera on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) during a series of 10 40-minute-long exposures. \u201cThe cameras on [JWST] are very sensitive,\u201d Hammel says. \u201cThey were designed to see the faintest galaxies in the universe,\u201d as well as faint things that are close to very bright ones (such as the planet Uranus). NASA announced the moon\u2019s discovery today via a blog post.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the reasons this moon is interesting is that it\u2019s very close to the main ring system,\u201d Hammel says. Unlike Saturn\u2019s rings, which are packed together, Uranus\u2019s rings are more like Hula-Hoops, with lots of separation between each. The rings cluster between a main inner system and a faint outer one, Hammel says, and researchers speculate that the rings are sculpted by the planet\u2019s little orbiting moons.<\/p>\n There are still many questions about the new minuscule moon for astronomers to explore: How does it compare with other moons? What is its color and composition? JWST might help answer a few of these questions. But regardless of what comes next, the discovery shows \u201chow we can extend the horizons of our knowledge, even in our own solar system, using an advanced telescope like JWST,\u201d Hammel says. \u201cAnd it helps us get a better understanding of what drives the phenomena in our solar system\u2014like \u201c\u2018What is crafting that ring system around the planet Uranus?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" August 19, 2025 2 min read NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope Discovers New Moon of Uranus Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have spotted a moon nestled near Uranus\u2019s rings that\u2019s so small you could walk around it By Andrea Tamayo edited by Sarah Lewin Frasier An image of Uranus taken by NASA’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[4406,817,1615,1883,1101,1695,9985,7633],"class_list":{"0":"post-16682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-discovers","9":"tag-james","10":"tag-moon","11":"tag-nasas","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-telescope","14":"tag-uranus","15":"tag-webb"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}On supporting science journalism<\/h2>\n