Umbriel

uranus · moons · space

Dark and distant. Umbriel is the darkest moon orbiting Uranus, making it look like a shadowy world compared to its neighboring moons. Its dark surface absorbs most of the sunlight that reaches it.

Rocky and icy. Umbriel is made mostly of ice with significant amounts of rock mixed in. Scientists think it has a rocky center surrounded by a thick icy layer, like a frozen ball with a stone heart.

Crater-covered world. Umbriel's surface is covered with craters from countless asteroid and meteor impacts over billions of years. These impacts have shaped most of what we see on the moon today.

Canyon mysteries. Unlike many other moons, Umbriel has deep canyons on its surface, which suggests that long ago, something powerful happened inside the moon that reshaped its crust. Scientists are still figuring out what caused these dramatic changes.

Named after poetry. Umbriel was named after a character from a famous 1712 poem called The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, along with many other Uranian moons that have literary names.