URANUS!!!! GET IT??? HAR!!!! HAR!!!! HAR!!!!

Any news story about rings and moons of Uranus is going to generate lots of juvenile and scatological comments. I realize the title of this post isn't very good or original, and I'm sorry, really I am. I could probably put my mind to it and come up with something much more clever, but more likely I won't bother.

The two moons mentioned in the article were actually discovered back in 2003, although they've only just received names (along with 4 other moons at Uranus, and 1 at Neptune). The rings are new discoveries, as far as I'm aware.

For anyone who still clings to the idea of memorizing all the moons in the solar system (yes, both of you), the new Uranian moons are "Cupid", "Mab", "Perdita", "Francisco", "Margaret", and "Ferdinand", and the new Neptunian moon is "Psamathe".

So... Francisco? Margaret? Ferdinand?!?! Yes, I realize they're perfectly legit names within the Shakespearean naming scheme, but you have to admit they sound kind of stupid. They could've at least called the last one "Fernando" instead, so it'd do double duty as a silly ABBA reference.

Perdita, meanwhile, was first seen by Voyager in '86, and since then they'd been going back and forth about whether it was real or not. I assume they wouldn't have given it a name if they weren't sure. It's allegedly named for a character in "A Winter's Tale", but I prefer to believe it's a Pratchett reference.

While we're on the subject of scatological crudeness, SCO's Q4 numbers are out. Eeewww!!!!!