Oberon (moon) Oberon (moon) Oberon, also designated , is the outermost major moon of the planet Uranus. It is the second-largest and second most massive of the Uranian moons, and the ninth most massive moon in the Solar System. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Oberon is named after the mythical king of the fairies who appears as a character in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Its orbit lies partially outside Uranus's magnetosphere. It is likely that Oberon formed from the accretion disk that surrounded Uranus just after the planet's formation. The moon consists of approximately equal amounts of ice and rock,
Formation and evolution of the Solar System This origin is indicated by the large sizes of the moons and their proximity to the planet. These attributes are impossible to achieve via capture, while the gaseous nature of the primaries also make formation from collision debris unlikely. The outer moons of the giant planets tend to be small and have eccentric orbits with arbitrary inclinations. These are the characteristics expected of captured bodies. Most such moons orbit in the direction opposite the rotation of their primary. The largest irregular moon is Neptune's moon Triton, which is thought to be a captured Kuiper belt object. Moons of solid Solar