Discovery of Ferdinand

Ferdinand is a small irregular moon of Uranus, found in 2001 by a team led by Matthew Holman during a search for faint outer moons of the giant planets. It orbits the planet at a great distance on a retrograde path, running opposite to Uranus's rotation, which suggests it was captured rather than formed in place. It was seen only briefly after its first sighting and was not observed for many years, and its orbit was later recovered through new observations. It is named after the son of the King of Naples in Shakespeare's The Tempest, who falls in love with Prospero's daughter Miranda, following the convention of using Shakespearean names for Uranus's moons.

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