--- title: NASA Telescope Spots a Previously Unknown Moon of Uranus description: The new discovery brings Uranus' total number of known moons to 29. canonical: https://time.com/7310845/nasa-uranus-moon-discovery/ author: Chantelle Lee article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-08-19T22:32:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-11T01:48:53.956Z article:section: Science og:title: NASA Telescope Spots a Previously Unknown Moon of Uranus og:description: The new discovery brings Uranus' total number of known moons to 29. og:url: https://time.com/7310845/nasa-uranus-moon-discovery/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc55e7eaff7479477/6998c915e1ba00820498dd46/Uranus-New-Moon.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2000 og:image:height: 1125 og:image:alt: Illustration of Uranus og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: NASA Telescope Spots a Previously Unknown Moon of Uranus twitter:description: The new discovery brings Uranus' total number of known moons to 29. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc55e7eaff7479477/6998c915e1ba00820498dd46/Uranus-New-Moon.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # NASA Telescope Spots a Previously Unknown Moon of Uranus > Sponsored content. 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Illustration of Uranus. Science Photo Library/Getty Images by [Chantelle Lee](https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/) ## Chantelle Lee Reporter Aug 19, 2025 10:32 PM UTC NASA’s [James Webb Space Telescope](https://time.com/collection/best-inventions-2022/6229836/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope/) has found a previously unknown moon orbiting [Uranus](https://time.com/6220649/why-uranus-has-a-tilted-orbit/). NASA [announced](https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/webb/2025/08/19/new-moon-discovered-orbiting-uranus-using-nasas-webb-telescope/) the discovery on Tuesday, adding that the moon was first spotted on Feb. 2\. Scientists estimate that the newly discovered moon is about six miles in diameter. Its “tiny” size is likely why other telescopes—and the Voyager 2 spacecraft that conducted a flyby nearly four decades ago—hadn’t caught sight of it before, according to NASA. By comparison, [Earth’s Moon](https://www1.grc.nasa.gov/beginners-guide-to-aeronautics/moon/) has a mean diameter of more than 2,000 miles, and Uranus’ largest moon, [Titania](https://science.nasa.gov/uranus/moons/titania/), has a diameter of roughly 1,000 miles. “It’s a small moon but a significant discovery,” Maryame El Moutamid, a lead scientist in the Southwest Research Institute’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division, said in NASA’s announcement. Before this discovery, Uranus—the seventh planet from the Sun—was known to have [28 moons](https://science.nasa.gov/uranus/moons/). The planet’s moons have often been dubbed the “literary moons” because they’re all named after characters from works by William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. The planet has five major moons: [Miranda](https://time.com/3408654/miranda-uranus-solar-system-moon/), Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. The new moon, which brings Uranus’ total number of known moons to 29, is currently designated at S/2025 U1 but doesn’t have an official name yet. A name will need to be approved by the International Astronomical Union, which is responsible for naming and designating astronomical objects, according to NASA. The space agency added that the discovery hasn’t yet gone through the peer-review process. Before this year, the most recently discovered moon, designated at S/2023 U1, was [sighted](https://science.nasa.gov/uranus/moons/) in November 2023. Matthew Tiscareno, a member of the research team who is part of the SETI Institute, said in NASA’s announcement that the latest discovery makes “it likely that even more complexity remains to be discovered” when it comes to the moons orbiting Uranus. “There’s probably a lot more of them and we just need to keep looking,” Tiscareno told [The Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/new-moon-uranus-jwst-5b348bb1443477ebad62bed7245abbf3). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7310845/nasa-uranus-moon-discovery/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7310845/nasa-uranus-moon-discovery/"},"headline":"NASA Telescope Spots a Previously Unknown Moon of Uranus","datePublished":"2025-08-19T22:32:08.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-11T01:48:53.956Z","description":"The new discovery brings Uranus' total number of known moons to 29.","url":"https://time.com/7310845/nasa-uranus-moon-discovery/","keywords":["Space"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc55e7eaff7479477/6998c915e1ba00820498dd46/Uranus-New-Moon.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Chantelle Lee","jobTitle":"Reporter","url":"https://time.com/author/chantelle-lee/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltc55e7eaff7479477/6998c915e1ba00820498dd46/Uranus-New-Moon.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Illustration of Uranus","caption":"Illustration of Uranus","creditText":"Science Photo Library/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/7310845/nasa-uranus-moon-discovery/","name":"NASA Telescope Spots a Previously Unknown Moon of Uranus"}}]}] ```