Cordelia (moon)
Cordelia (Imaged 24 January 1986) | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Richard J. Terrile / Voyager 2 |
| Discovery date | January 20, 1986 |
| Designations | |
Designation | Uranus VI |
| Pronunciation | /kɔːrˈdiːliə/ |
| Adjectives | Cordelian |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| 49751.722±0.149 km | |
| Eccentricity | 0.00026±0.000096 |
| 0.33503384±0.00000058 d | |
| Inclination | 0.08479°±0.031° (to Uranus's equator) |
| Satellite of | Uranus |
| Group | ring shepherd |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 50 × 36 × 36 km |
| ~5200 km2 | |
| Volume | 33900±34.9% km3 |
| Mass | (6.08±0.57)×1016 kg |
Mean density | 1.79+0.97 −0.49 g/cm3 |
| ~0.006–0.013 m/s2 | |
| ~0.018–0.021 km/s | |
| synchronous | |
| zero | |
| Albedo | 0.06±0.01 0.07 |
| Temperature | ~65 K |
| |
Cordelia is the innermost known moon of Uranus. It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on January 20, 1986, and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 7. It was not detected again until the Hubble Space Telescope observed it in 1997. Cordelia takes its name from the youngest daughter of Lear in William Shakespeare's King Lear. It is also designated Uranus VI.
Other than its orbit, size of 50 × 36 km, and geometric albedo of 0.06, virtually nothing is known about it. In the Voyager 2 images, Cordelia appears as an elongated object with its major axis pointing towards Uranus. The ratio of axes of Cordelia's prolate spheroid is 0.7±0.2.
Cordelia acts as the inner shepherd satellite for Uranus's ε ring. Cordelia's orbit is within Uranus's synchronous orbit radius, and is therefore slowly decaying due to tidal deceleration.
Cordelia is very close to a 5:3 orbital resonance with Rosalind.