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Umbriel

Adapted from Wikipedia · Explorer experience

A detailed image of Umbriel, one of Uranus's moons, showing its heavily cratered surface as captured by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986.

Discovering Umbriel

Umbriel is one of the beautiful moons that orbits the planet Uranus. It was discovered on October 24, 1851, by an astronomer named William Lassell. He found Umbriel at the same time as another moon called Ariel. Umbriel gets its name from a character in a poem by Alexander Pope called The Rape of the Lock.

What Umbriel Looks Like

Umbriel is made mostly of ice mixed with rock. Scientists believe it might have a rocky core surrounded by an icy mantle. The surface of Umbriel looks very dark and has many round pits called impact craters. Some of these craters are as wide as 210 kilometers! One special crater named Wunda has a bright ring inside it, making it stand out.

Visiting Umbriel

The only time we got close-up pictures of Umbriel was in January 1986. A spacecraft called Voyager 2 flew by and took many photographs. These pictures helped scientists learn more about Umbriel’s surface and how it looks. Even though we have learned a lot, there is still more to discover about this fascinating moon!

Images

An artist's illustration showing the Voyager spacecraft traveling through space, exploring our solar system.
A diagram comparing the sizes of Earth, the Moon, and the moon Umbriel.
A colorful map of Umbriel, one of Uranus's moons, showing its surface features.
A colorful image of the planet Uranus captured by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986, showing the planet's unique blue-green appearance.
A stunning collection of images showing the planet Jupiter and its four largest moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto — taken by the NASA Voyager 1 spacecraft.
A colorful view of Pluto and its moon Charon, showing detailed surface features as captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.
An image of asteroid 243 Ida and its tiny moon Dactyl taken by the Galileo spacecraft in 1993, showing details of the asteroid's surface.
A stunning view of Earth rising over the lunar horizon, captured by astronauts during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.
A colorful educational montage of the planets in our solar system, including Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, taken by NASA spacecraft.
An artist's depiction of HE 1523-0901, one of the oldest stars in our galaxy, located about 7,500 light-years from Earth.

Related articles

William Lassell
Ariel (moon)
Alexander Pope
The Rape of the Lock
Rock (geology)
Core (geology)

This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on Umbriel, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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