Discovery of Desdemona

Desdemona is a small inner moon of Uranus, about 64 kilometres across, discovered in January 1986 in images from the Voyager 2 spacecraft and credited to Stephen Synnott. It circles close to the planet between Cressida and Juliet, in a crowded region of closely spaced small moons. Calculations show that the orbits of this group of moons are unstable on long timescales, and Desdemona may collide with a neighbour, possibly Cressida or Juliet, within the next few tens of millions of years. It is named after Othello's wife in Shakespeare's tragedy. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus, so little is known about its surface.

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