Juliet is the third-largest inner satellite of Uranus after Puck and Portia. Juliet is the 9th largest Moon of Uranus and the 47th largest moon in the Solar System currently known.
Discovery
Juliet was discovered by Stephen P. Synnott, who is an American astronomer and Voyager scientist, from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 3 January 1986.
Naming
The moon was given the temporary designation S/1986 U2.
Juliet the moon is named after Juliet, the heroine of William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers. Juliet is the daughter of the Capulets, who are sworn enemies to the Montagues. Nevertheless, she falls in love with Romeo, son of the Montagues, and secretly marries him. The feud between the families eventually leads to the deaths of both Romeo and Juliet. But their death ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.
Stats
Diameter (mean): 94 km
Semi-major axis: 64,360 km
Orbital Period: 0.49 days
Orbit
Juliet takes as long to rotate on its axis as it does to make one orbit of Uranus; and therefore always keeps the same hemisphere pointed to Uranus.
Juliet's orbit lies inside Uranus' synchronous orbital radius, and is slowly decaying due to tidal deceleration. The moon will one day either break up into a planetary ring or hit Uranus.
Juliet belongs to a group of satellites called the Portia Group, which includes Portia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda and Perdita. These satellites have similar orbits and photometric properties.
Juliet may collide with Desdemona within the next 100 million years.
Physical characteristics
Little is known about Juliet beyond its size of about 94 km, orbit and geometric albedo of about 0.08.
In the Voyager 2 images, Juliet appears as an elongated object whose major axis points towards Uranus. Juliet's surface is grey in color.
Exploration Status
No close-up image of Juliet has been photographed.
No mission is planned in the foreseeable future.
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