Miranda Moon Facts for Kids

A Picture of the moon Miranda
  • Moon Name: Miranda
  • Formed: Around 4.5 billion years ago
  • Discovered: February 16th, 1948 by Gerard Kuiper
  • Time to Orbit Around Uranus: About 1.4 Earth days
  • Orbit Speed: 14,898 miles per hour
  • Total Surface Area: 434,959 square miles
  • Total Volume: Around 13,155,616 cubic miles

13 Miranda Moon Facts for Kids

  1. Miranda is one of the five major natural satellites (moons) of the planet Uranus.
  2. Miranda is also known as Uranus V.
  3. Miranda is named after a character in the Shakespeare play “The Tempest”.
  4. Miranda was discovered on February 16th, 1948, by Gerard Kuiper.
  5. Miranda has a diameter of 292 miles, making it the smallest of the five major moons of Uranus.
  6. Miranda orbits Uranus every 33.6 hours, and it has the closest orbit to Uranus of all the five major moons.
  7. Miranda’s +16.6 apparent magnitude prevents amateur telescopes from being able to view it.
  8. Astronomers estimate that Miranda is made up of more than 60% ice water, with the rest being silicate rock.
  9. The largest cliff in our Solar System is on Miranda. It’s called Verona Rupes and it’s over 12 miles above the surface.
  10. The low gravity on Miranda means a person jumping off Verona Rupes would take about 10 minutes to actually hit the surface.
  11. Miranda is one of the smallest objects in our Solar System that obtained its round shape from its own gravity.
  12. The Voyager 2 was the only spacecraft to do a close flyby of Miranda, the closest Voyager got was around 18,000 miles.
  13. The Voyager 2 flyby of Miranda was only able to observe the southern hemisphere that was pointed at the Sun.

Additional Resources on Uranus’s moon Miranda

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