New 'tiny' moon found orbiting Uranus, bringing satellite family to 29
A team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) discovered the moon on Feb. 2. They made the discovery using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which the space agency says is the largest, most powerful telescope ever launched into space.
The newly-discovered moon, called S/2025 U1, is about 6 miles in diameter, NASA said, calling it "tiny." Its discovery brings Uranus' total satellite family to 29.
"This object was spotted in a series of 10 40-minute long-exposure images captured by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam)," said Maryame El Moutamid, a Colorado-based lead scientist from SwRI, in a news release. "It's a small moon but a significant discovery, which is something that even NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft didn't see during its flyby nearly 40 years ago."
According to NASA, the NIRCam used to detect the new moon has high resolution and infrared sensitivity that allows it to pick up faint, distant objects.
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