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Uranian Moons
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Uraniun moons bardic named
for plays and persons Shakespeare famed,
albeit twenty-seven known
fourteen there are in image shown
in orbit paths ‘round planet wound,
along with galaxies background.
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The moons ice giant’s, all but two
are titled after Shakespeare’s crew
of characters e’er highly prized
in solar skies immortalized
as lunar orbs empyreal
in firmament ethereal.
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That outer planet’s at a tilt
on axis, and its course is built
to rotate once in seventeen
hours in its days and nights between.
It’s distant, seventh from the sun,
and in seventeen eighty-one
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found existent; Hipparchus saw
it first perhaps in starry awe.
But moons at later date were spied,
that is, were telescopic eyed,
over quite a number of years.
William Herschel garnered the cheers
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for discovering the two first
moons, and then they were Shakespeare versed
in epithets literary
which may seem extraordinary…
Withal, verily there they are,
each moon celestial Shakespeare star!
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~ Harley White
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Some sources of inspiration were the following…
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Image and info ~ Shakespeare in Space (APOD)…
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231229.html
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Moons of Uranus (Wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Uranus
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The Shakespearean Moons of Uranus…
https://www.folger.edu/podcasts/shakespeare-unlimited/shakespearean-moons-uranus/
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https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231229.html
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Shakespeare in Space
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
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Explanation: In 1986, Voyager 2 became the only spacecraft to explore ice giant planet Uranus close up. Still, this newly released image from the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on the James Webb Space Telescope offers a detailed look at the distant world. The tilted outer planet rotates on its axis once in about 17 hours. Its north pole is presently pointed near our line of sight, offering direct views of its northern hemisphere and a faint but extensive system of rings. Of the giant planet’s 27 known moons, 14 are annotated in the image. Mixed with fuzzy background galaxies, the brighter moons show hints of Webb’s characteristic diffraction spikes. And though these worlds of the outer Solar System were unknown in Shakespearean times, all but two of the 27 Uranian moons are named for characters in the English bard’s plays.
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