About 18 km in diameter (assuming an albedo of 0.04), Trinculo is a small, dark moon orbiting Uranus in the opposite direction from the
regular moons and the planet's rotation (called a retrograde orbit).
Discovery:
Trinculo was discovered on 13 August 2001 by Matthew Holman, John J. Kavelaars and Dan Milisavljevic at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, British Columbia, and by using the 4-m reflector at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
How Trinculo Got its Name:
Originally called S/2001 U1, Trinculo was named for the jester in Shakespeare's play "The Tempest." Initially, Trinculo plots with Stephano and Caliban to kill Prospero, but later aligns himself with whomever he perceives to be the leader in any situation in which he finds himself.
Moons of Uranus are named for characters in William Shakespeare's plays and from Alexander Pope's "Rape of the Lock."
