Miranda (moon) Miranda (moon) Miranda, also designated Uranus V, is the smallest and innermost of Uranus's five round satellites. It was discovered by Gerard Kuiper on 16 February 1948 at McDonald Observatory, and named after Miranda from William Shakespeare's play "The Tempest". Like the other large moons of Uranus, Miranda orbits close to its planet's equatorial plane. Because Uranus orbits the Sun on its side, Miranda's orbit is perpendicular to the ecliptic and shares Uranus's extreme seasonal cycle. At just 470 km in diameter, Miranda is one of the smallest closely observed objects in the Solar System that might be in hydrostatic
Moons of Uranus and so would be considered (dwarf) planets if they were in direct orbit about the Sun. The remaining moons were discovered after 1985, either during the "Voyager 2" flyby mission or with the aid of advanced Earth-based telescopes. The first two moons to be discovered were Titania and Oberon, which were spotted by Sir William Herschel on January 11, 1787, six years after he had discovered the planet itself. Later, Herschel thought he had discovered up to six moons (see below) and perhaps even a ring. For nearly 50 years, Herschel's instrument was the only one with which the moons