When was Ariel moon discovered by William Lassell?
William Lassell spotted Ariel on the 24th of October 1851 from his private observatory in England. The discovery occurred thirty years after he had found Titania and Oberon.
Questions about Ariel (moon)
Short answers, pulled from the story.
Why is Ariel named after a character from literature?
John Herschel proposed the name Ariel to honor a character from Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock. The same name also belongs to a spirit serving Prospero in Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
How long does it take for Ariel to orbit Uranus?
Ariel orbits at roughly 190,000 kilometers from Uranus every 2.5 Earth days. Its path lies almost perfectly within the planet's equatorial plane.
What evidence suggests Ariel has a subsurface ocean?
Researchers analyzed fractures and grabens in a study published in April 2025 to estimate ocean depth. They proposed that past orbital eccentricity reached as high as 0.04 which generated tidal stresses sufficient to maintain liquid water beneath the crust.
Which spacecraft visited Ariel during its mission to Uranus?
Voyager 2 flew past Ariel on the 24th of January 1986 during its Uranus mission. No other spacecraft has ever visited the Uranian system since that flyby.