Margaret, a moon of Uranus
8,913,553 miles
12 miles
Margaret was discovered in 2003 by Scott S. Sheppard and colleagues, using the 8.2-metre Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii. Its distant, inclined, and elongated orbit suggests that, like the other irregular moons, Margaret was captured by Uranus’s gravity rather than forming alongside the regular moons.
Margaret is named after a character in Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, written in the late 16th century. In the play, she is a waiting gentlewoman to Hero, one of the main female characters. Margaret is tricked into taking part in a ruse that convinces Hero’s fiancé, Claudio, that Hero has been unfaithful. Although she is unaware of the scheme’s true intent, her involvement triggers much of the play’s dramatic tension.
The name follows Uranus’s tradition of taking characters from Shakespeare and Alexander Pope,
