Links
- Wikipedia
- Puck on Wikipedia
Puck
Details
Puck is the largest of Uranus' lesser inner moons, discovered in Voyager 2 images ahead of the spacecraft's 1986 Uranus flyby. It orbits Uranus in less than one Earth day, giving the planet's crowded inner moon region a compact anchor between the rings and Miranda.
Puck matters because it is the largest member of Uranus' small inner moon family, not one of the five classical major moons. Voyager 2 found it during the 1986 Uranus encounter, turning what had been a nearly invisible inner region into a known collection of small satellites.
Puck is 162 kilometers across, the largest of Uranus' lesser satellites. That makes it a useful boundary object: large enough to stand apart from the smallest inner moons, but still far below Miranda and the other major Uranian moons. It orbits the planet in less than one Earth day, deep inside the larger moon system.
That is why Puck belongs on this scale. It shows that Uranus is not only a set of five named icy worlds; it also has a crowded inner system where small moons and narrow rings occupy the same architectural neighborhood. Puck gives that inner region a visible body to hold onto.
70.8km
Visual creditscaleofspace.org / CC BY-NC 4.0
Key facts
- Scale fact
- 162 kmdiameter
- Composition
- Water ice and silicate rock
Scale context
Where Puck sits on the full axis
By size on the journey, Puck sits between Prometheus and Janus. The band below compares Puck with nearby Small inner moon objects so the size jump stays easy to read.
Together, these objects make the size change around Puck easy to compare at a glance.
Sources
References for Puck
Measurements and descriptive context are compiled by the Scale of Space team from the references below. If you find an error, please let us know.
- Puck — Wikipedia
- Visual: scaleofspace.org / CC BY-NC 4.0
Between the smallest and the largest, perspective is everything.
About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides turn parts of that scale into curated essays, while focused views let you explore the same range through specific groups of objects.