Desdemona, a moon of Uranus
Image of Uranus in infrared from Hubble Space Telescope. Image was taken on 28th July 1997, capturing clouds in the atmosphere of Uranus, its rings and 8 of its moons, including Desdemona. Image credit: NASA/JPL/STScI
38,960 miles
44 miles
Desdemona is a a member of a group of Uranus' moons called the Portia group. The Portia group contains nine moons (Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda and Perdita) which have similar appearances and characteristics. These moons may have unstable orbits which leads to the possibility that, at some point in the distant future, they could collide with each other, break up into pieces, form rings or crash into Uranus.
All moons of Uranus get their names from characters in plays written by William Shakespeare or a poem written by Alexander Pope. Desdemona is a major character in William Shakespeare's play Othello, written in 1603 or 1604.
In the play, Desdemona and Othello marry in secret and Desdemona is truly devoted to her husband. Othello is an army general and under his command is Iago, Othello's standard bearer. Although Othello trusts Iago, Iago has a deep hatred for Othello and he convinces Othello that Desdemona is unfaithful to him. Although Desdemona continually protests her innocence throughout the play, Othello doesn't believe her, and ends up killing her. After realising that he has been manipulated by Iago, Othello then kills himself.
Desdemona is also designated as S/1986 U 6 or Uranus X.
