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April 30, 1998: The discovery of Caliban and Sycorax

Astronomy Magazine·Elisa Neckar·about 1 month ago
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Today in the history of astronomy, a report of two new moons of Uranus is published. | Published: April 30, 2026 Caliban is circled in this photo from its discovery, taken by the Hale Telescope. Credit: Palomar Observatory/NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons In the April 30, 1998, issue of the journal Nature , astronomers reported the discovery of two new moons of Uranus. The team of Philip Nicholson, Brett Gladman, Joseph Burns, and John Kavelaars, had first spotted the two satellites on Sept. 6, 1997, using the 200-inch Hale Telescope at the Palomar Observatory. In the April publication, the astronomers proposed naming the bodies Sycorax and Caliban , after characters in The Tempest . The moons were the first at Uranus found in irregular orbits, and at the time of their discovery, the faintest moons imaged from Earth.…

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