NASA’s Webb telescope discovers new moon orbiting Uranus

WASHINGTON, DC: NASA announced that the James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new, 29th satellite of Uranus, which was named S/2025 U1.

According to NASA, a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) identified the previously unknown moon orbiting Uranus during a Webb observation on 2nd February 2025, expanding the planet’s known satellite family to 29.

The diameter of the satellite is estimated to be only some 10 kilometres. The satellite’s small size prevented NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft from spotting it in 1986.

Maryame El Moutamid, a lead scientist in SwRI’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division, said, “It’s a small moon but a significant discovery, which is something that even NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft didn’t see during its flyby nearly 40 years ago.”

S/2025 U1 orbits Uranus at a distance of about 56,000 kilometres and will be given another name at a later stage. (ANI/ WAM)