What is "perdita"

Perdita is an inner satellite of Uranus. Perdita's discovery was complicated. The first photographs of Perdita were taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986, but it was not recognized from the photographs for more than a decade. In 1999, the moon was noticed by Erich Karkoschka and reported. But because no further pictures could be taken to confirm its existence, it was officially demoted in 2001. However, in 2003, pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope managed to pick up an object where Perdita was supposed to be, finally confirming its existence.

Following its discovery in 1999, it was given the temporary designation of S/1986 U 10. It was named Perdita ( Latin for 'lost') after the daughter of Leontes and Hermione in William Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale. The moon is also designated Uranus XXV.

The moon orbits between Belinda and Puck. The above-mentioned Hubble measurements prove that Perdita does not follow a direct Keplerian motion around Uranus. Instead, it is clearly caught in a 43:44 orbital resonance with the nearby moon Belinda. It is also close to an 8:7 resonance with Rosalind.

Perdita belongs to the Portia group of satellites, which also includes Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Portia, Juliet, Cupid, Rosalind and Belinda. These satellites have similar orbits and photometric properties. Little is known about Perdita apart from its orbit, radius of 15 km and geometric albedo of 0.08.

Perdita (Latin for "loss"), can mean:

• Perdita (genus), a genus of North American native bees
• Perdita (The Winter's Tale), the heroine of Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale
• Perdita (moon), a minor satellite of the planet Uranus
• Perdita Felicien, Canadian track athlete
• Perdita Huston, women's rights activist
• Perdita II (foaled 1881), English Thoroughbred racemare
• Perdita Buchan (born 1940), Anglo-American author
• Perdita Weeks (born 1985), English actress
• Perdita, The nickname of Mary Robinson (poet), an 18th-century English actress
• Perdita, An alter-ego of Agnes Nitt, in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels
• Perdita, The name of a sky ship in Stardust (novel) by Neil Gaiman
• Perdita, The title of, and a character in, a novel by Hilary Cunningham Scharper
• Perdita, Female Dalmatian dog character in The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith and other adaptations:
  • One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), animated film
  • 101 Dalmatians (1996 film), live action film

Perdita is one of the heroines of William Shakespeare's play The Winter's Tale. She is the daughter of Leontes, King of Sicilia, and his wife Hermione.

Perdita is a large genus of bees native to North America, particularly diverse in the desert regions of the United States and Mexico. There are over 700 recognized species and subspecies of Perdita, plus some 200 more as yet unnamed. Perdita are usually quite small (2.0 mm to 10.0 mm) and often brightly colored with metallic reflections and/or yellow or white markings. The genus was extensively treated by P.H. Timberlake who, in addition to T.D.A. Cockerell, described most of the known species. Most species are extreme specialists ( oligoleges) with respect to pollen and will only collect pollen from a few closely related species or genera of plants.