Portia (
por'-sha) is a
moon of
Uranus. Very little is known about it. It is named after
Portia, the heroine of
William Shakespeare's play
The Merchant of Venice. Since it is below Uranus' synchronous
orbit radius, Portia's orbit is slowly decaying due to
tidal forces and it will one day break up into a
planetary ring or impact on Uranus' surface.
It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 1986-01-03 , and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 1. It is also designated Uranus XII.
