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Miranda

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MOON

Miranda

A patchwork moon of coronae and cliffs — the innermost and most dramatic of Uranus's five major satellites.

Orbits Uranus

Physical Properties

236 km
6.4e19 kg
1.2 g/cm³
0.079 m/s²
33.92 h
0.32
60 K

Orbit

Uranus
129,390 km
0.0013
4.232°
1.413479 d

Sources & Further Reading

Numerical values (radius, mass, orbital elements, temperatures) are drawn from NASA NSSDC Planetary Fact Sheets, JPL Horizons, and the JPL Small-Body Database. Last refreshed: 2026-04-18 18:19:24.

Miranda is the innermost of Uranus’s five major moons and the smallest. Despite its size — barely 472 km across — it has one of the most bizarre surfaces in the Solar System. Three large oval “coronae” (Arden, Elsinore, Inverness), each ~200-300 km across, disrupt a heavily cratered terrain. Verona Rupes, a cliff with a ~20 km vertical drop, may be the tallest cliff anywhere known. Miranda’s appearance led to speculation that it had been shattered by an impact and then re-accreted; more recent modeling favors partial differentiation driven by ancient tidal heating.