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,
Discovery and exploration of the Solar System human settlement in space began with the Soviet space station Mir, which was continuously occupied for close to ten years, from 1989 to 1999. Its successor, the International Space Station, has maintained a continuous human presence in space since 2001. In 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush announced the Vision for Space Exploration, which called for a replacement for the aging Shuttle, a return to the Moon and, ultimately, a crewed mission to Mars. Bodies imaged up close: See also: Meteorites and Cosmic dust Discovery and exploration of the Solar System Discovery and exploration of the Solar System is observation,