"Sweet Moon," William Shakespeare wrote in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "I thank thee for thy sunny beams; I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright." Centuries later, the moons of Uranus pay homage to the famous playwright.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this false-color image of Uranus and its moons.

While most of the satellites orbiting other planets take their names from Greek mythology, Uranus' moons are unique in being named for Shakespearean characters, along with a couple of the moons being named for characters from the works of Alexander Pope.

Oberon and Titania are the largest Uranian moons, and were first to be discovered -- by William Herschel in 1787. William Lassell, who had been first to see a moon orbiting Neptune, discovered the next two, Ariel and Umbriel.moons:

-Miranda, the innermost and smallest of the five major satellites, has a surface unlike any other moon that's been seen. It has giant fault canyons as much as 12 times as deep as the Grand Canyon, terraced layers and surfaces that appear very old, and others that look much younger.

-Ariel has the brightest and possibly the youngest surface among all the moons of Uranus. It has few large craters and many small ones, indicating that fairly recent low-impact collisions wiped out the large craters that would have been left by much earlier, bigger strikes. Intersecting valleys pitted with craters scars its surface.

-Umbriel is ancient, and the darkest of the five large moons. It has many old, large craters and sports a mysterious bright ring on one side.

-Oberon, the