How many moons does Uranus have?

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Uranus has 29 moons, as of 20 August 2025. These moons are divided into three groups: 5 major moons (Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon, all named for characters in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”), 19 small inner moons and ten irregular moons orbiting further out. The largest of these is Titania, which is the 8th largest moon in the Solar System with a diameter of 1528 km. The most recently discovered moon has not yet been named, but has … Continue reading →

Trying something new

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Signs of life detected. This website may be returning to active service soon! We’ve already begun integrating with the Fediverse, to make it easier for people to find new articles and listen to the podcast. We’d appreciate if you could reply to this quick note, with a short comment or ‘Like’, or whatever is available. Since you might be reading this in any of a range of apps, social media networks or web browsers, I’d like to see what responses … Continue reading →

Impossible exoplanets and Rhetoric

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This is episode 62 of the Urban Astronomer Podcast, our first release of 2022. Happy New year! In this episode, we’re doing something a little different. Traditionally we alternate between interviews and Science Explainy Bits, but the second segment here is a bit more philosophical than usual, and ran a bit short, so I’ve added something a bit more topical – some astronomy news! Impossible exoplanet As covered previously on this website, the science media were very excited to report … Continue reading →

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Giant exoplanet upsets theories on how planets form

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Astronomers have identified the biggest star known to have exoplanets yet, upsetting standard planetary formation models. To date, b Centauri is the biggest star known to host an exoplanet. Estimates of its mass put it at between two and four times the previous record holder, meaning it could be up to ten times bigger than our own Sun.

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Interview with Dr Julia Healy

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This episode features an interview with Dr Julia Healy, from ASTRON, where she works as part of the MHONGOOSE survey team. When this interview was originally recorded early last year, she hadn’t yet submitted her PhD thesis, but has since graduated and earned the title “Dr”. Julia completed her Bachelor of Science, specialising in Astrophysics and Physics, at the University of Cape Town in 2013. She went on to complete a Bachelor of Science Honours in Physics in 2014 and … Continue reading →

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