Space · Moons
Caliban
A moon of Uranus — Uranus's first-discovered irregular moon — a retrograde captured body.
Quick facts
Parent planet
Diameter (mean)
72 km
Mass
2.5 × 10¹⁷ kg
3.4e-06 Moon masses
Mean orbital radius
7,231,000 km
Orbital period
579.7 Earth days
Discovery year
1997
Discoverer
Brett J. Gladman et al.
Naming origin
Half-human creature in The Tempest
Surface conditions
Caliban is an outer irregular moon of Uranus, in a retrograde orbit at 7.2 million km — the closest of Uranus's irregulars. Discovered alongside Sycorax in 1997, it was the first irregular Uranian moon identified.
Missions and observations
Every Uranus-system mission has had an opportunity to image or characterize Caliban. The list below is the Uranus-system mission catalog; specific Caliban encounters are documented in mission archives.
| Mission | Year at Uranus | Status |
|---|---|---|
|
Voyager 2 NASA |
1986 | Completed |
Naming etymology
Caliban was the half-human servant of Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest, son of the witch Sycorax. Adopted by the IAU in 1998.
Methodology & sources
Diameter, mass, and orbital parameters from JPL Solar System Dynamics — Physical Parameters. Discovery year and discoverer from the JPL Satellite Discovery Circumstances. Naming etymology from the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature. Agent-matched moon pages use the matching Mungomash team avatar in the hero; non-agent moons are text-only.