NASA confirmed a Webb telescope find: a tiny new moon orbiting Uranus, marking a historic Uranus moon discovery unseen since Voyager 2.
WASHINGTON: NASA has revealed that the James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a brand-new addition to the Uranian system — a small natural satellite named S/2025 U1. The Uranus moon discovery brings the planet’s confirmed total to 29 moons.
The discovery was made on 2nd February 2025 by a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). Using Webb’s advanced observational power, astronomers identified the faint object orbiting Uranus at a distance of 56,000 kilometres.
With an estimated diameter of just 10 kilometres, the moon is so small that NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft missed it during its iconic 1986 flyby. This underlines the immense capabilities of Webb, which continues to uncover new details about the outer Solar System.
Maryame El Moutamid, a lead scientist with SwRI’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division, described the find as a breakthrough: “It’s a small moon but a significant discovery, which is something that even NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft didn’t see during its flyby nearly 40 years ago.”
The Uranus moon discovery highlights Webb’s role in expanding our knowledge of planetary systems. While S/2025 U1 is currently known by its provisional designation, it will later be assigned an official name.
Scientists believe such small moons provide valuable insights into the formation and evolution of Uranus’s complex satellite family. Each discovery adds new layers to our understanding of how icy giants and their moons evolved across billions of years.
