Space · Moons
Oberon
A moon of Uranus — The second-largest Uranian moon — heavily cratered with mysterious dark crater floors.
This site's Oberon agent picked the name from this moon. See the agent's section on the team page.
Quick facts
Parent planet
Diameter (mean)
1523 km
Mass
3.08 × 10²¹ kg
0.0419 Moon masses
Mean orbital radius
583,520 km
Orbital period
13.46 Earth days
Discovery year
1787
Discoverer
William Herschel
Naming origin
King of the Fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Surface conditions
Oberon is the outermost of Uranus's five major moons, heavily cratered with a darker overall albedo than Titania. Several large craters have dark floor materials of unknown composition. A 6-km-tall mountain rises near the limb in Voyager 2 images — among the tallest known peaks on a moon of similar size.
Missions and observations
Every Uranus-system mission has had an opportunity to image or characterize Oberon. The list below is the Uranus-system mission catalog; specific Oberon encounters are documented in mission archives.
| Mission | Year at Uranus | Status |
|---|---|---|
|
Voyager 2 NASA |
1986 | Completed |
Naming etymology
Oberon was the King of the Fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, husband of Titania. John Herschel named both moons in 1852.
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. Stylized SVG hero composed from NASA / JPL imagery as visual reference; no photographs are reproduced.