Ophelia is a moon of Uranus. It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on January 20, 1986, and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 8. It was not seen again until the Hubble Space Telescope recovered it in 2003. Ophelia was named after the daughter of Polonius, Ophelia, in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. It is also designated Uranus VII.
Other than its orbit, size of 54 × 38 km, and geometric albedo of 0.065, virtually nothing is known about it. In Voyager 2, images Ophelia appears as an elongated object, with its major axis pointing towards Uranus. The ratio of axes of the Ophelia's prolate spheroid is 0.7 ± 0.3.
Ophelia acts as the outer shepherd satellite for Uranus's ε ring. The orbit of Ophelia is within the synchronous orbit radius of Uranus, and is therefore slowly decaying due to tidal forces.
See also
- Moons of Uranus
Notes
References
External links
- Ophelia Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration
- Uranus' Known Satellites (by Scott S. Sheppard)
