Astronomy and Space

Francisco (moon)

Francisco, also known as Uranus XXII and previously as S/2001 U 3, is the innermost known irregular moon of Uranus. It was discovered on 13 August 2001 by JJ Kavelaars, Matthew J. Holman, Dan Milisavljevic, and Tommy Grav at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. It was named after Francisco, a lord in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Francisco orbits Uranus at an average distance of 4.3 million km (2.7 million mi) and takes about 267 Earth days (0.73 Earth years) to complete one orbit. It follows a retrograde orbit around the planet, moving in the opposite direction to the planet's orbit around the Sun. Francisco has not been studied up close by any spacecraft, though Voyager 2 coincidentally passed nearby during its 1986 Uranus flyby. Francisco is estimated to have a diameter of 22 km (14 mi), though most of its physical properties are unknown.

Also on this shelf

See also

• ▸HD 219623
• ▸Hypenia
• ▸Ara (constellation)

Uncatalogued shelf

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