Cressida (moon)

Cressida is a small moon that orbits the planet Uranus. It was discovered in 1986 when scientists looked at pictures sent back by the spacecraft Voyager 2. At first, they called it S/1986 U 3, but later they named it Cressida after a character from an old story by William Shakespeare.

Cressida is part of a group of moons called the Portia group. These moons, including Bianca, Desdemona, Juliet, and Portia, all travel around Uranus in similar paths and have similar properties. Cressida is not very big—it is about 92 kilometers long and 74 kilometers wide. Not much is known about what its surface is like, but it looks gray and stretched out.

Cressida's path around Uranus is very close to one of Uranus's rings. This helps scientists learn about how much Cressida weighs. In 2024, they measured its mass to be about 1.8 times 10 to the 17 kilograms. Scientists think Cressida might even crash into another moon called Desdemona in the next 100 million years.