Umbriel as seen by Voyager 2 in 1986. At the top is the large crater Wunda, whose walls enclose a ring of bright material.
Umbriel is a moon of Uranus. It was discovered at the same time as Ariel and named after a character in Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the lock. Umbriel consists mainly of ice with a substantial fraction of rock, and may be differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle. Umbriel is slightly smaller than Pluto's moon Charon and slightly larger than Quaour.Umbriel is very possible to get terraformed because of its size. Umbriel orbits Uranus at the distance of about 266,000 km (165,000 mi), being the third farthest from the planet among its five major moons. Umbriel's orbit has a small eccentricity and is inclined very little relative to the equator of Uranus. Its orbital period is around 4.1 Earth days, coincident with its rotational period. In other words, Umbriel is a synchronous or tidally locked satellite, with one face always pointing toward its parent planet. Umbriel's orbit lies completely inside the Uranian magnetosphere. This is important, because the trailing hemisphere of airless satellites orbiting inside a magnetosphere (like Umbriel) are struck by magnetospheric plasma, which co-rotates with the planet. This bombardment may lead to the darkening of the trailing hemispheres, which is actually observed for all Uranian moons except Oberon. Umbriel also serves as a sink of the magnetospheric charged particles, which creates a pronounced dip in energetic particle count near the moon's orbit as observed by Voyager 2
in 1986. Putting and atmosphere on Umbriel will be difficult. We need to have a special type of probe only for Umbriel that can handle a high magnetospheric plasma. Umbriel will be a very large mining process because of the distance from Uranus and its tilt. The distance from Earth will also make it difficult to have a mining process. By Uranus 97 to 98 degree tilt Umbriel will have a permanent nightside and a permanent dayside We can change the angle of Umbriel so that Umbriel can rotate itself and still go around Uranus in the same motion. By that change it can alternate a very large wind system. Umbriel does not have a heating system below it's surface. We can possibly make a hot core below Umbriel that can wake its way up and create new life forms that can make creatures on the earth live longer because of the size Umbriel is only 40% the size of our moon. Craters of Umbriel will be a great place to start a colonization.
Artistic Impression of Uranus as seen from Umbriel
See also: Umbriel Simulation.