Portia

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Portia (moon)

Portia (/ˈpɔːrʃə/ POR-shə) is an inner satellite of Uranus. It was discovered from the images taken by Voyager 2 on 3 January 1986, and was given the temporary designation S/1986 U 1. The moon is named after Portia, the heroine of William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. It is also designated Uranus XII.

Portia is the second-largest inner satellite of Uranus after Puck. The Portian orbit, which lies inside Uranus' synchronous orbital radius, is slowly decaying due to tidal deceleration. The moon will one day either break up into a planetary ring or hit Uranus.

It heads a group of satellites called the Portia Group, which includes Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Rosalind, Cupid, Belinda and Perdita. These satellites have similar orbits and photometric properties.

Little is known about Portia beyond its size of about 140 km, orbit, and geometric albedo of about 0.08.

In the Voyager 2 images, Portia appears as an elongated object whose major axis points towards Uranus. The ratio of axes of the Portia's prolate spheroid is 0.8 ± 0.1. Its surface is grey in color. Observations with Hubble Space Telescope and large terrestrial telescopes found water ice absorption features in the spectrum of Portia.

Porcia Catonis

Porcia Catonis (c.70 BC – June 43 BC (or October 42 BC)), (Porcia "of Cato", in full Porcia Catonis filia, "Porcia the daughter of Cato") also known simply as Porcia, occasionally spelled "Portia" especially in 18th-century English literature, was a Roman woman who lived in the 1st century BC. She was the daughter of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticencis and his first wife Atilia. She is best known for being the second wife of Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Julius Caesar's assassins, and for her suicide, reputedly by swallowing hot coals.

Biography

Early life

Porcia was born between 73 BC and 64 BC. She had an affectionate nature, was addicted to philosophy and was full of an understanding courage.Plutarch describes her as being prime of youth and beauty. When she was still very young, her father divorced her mother for adultery.

At a young age she was married first to Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus, her father's political ally. This marriage occurred between 58 BC and 53 BC. With him she may have had a son, Lucius Calpurnius Bibulus, although modern historians believe Porcia was too young to have mothered Lucius, and that he was Bibulus' son by his previous marriage, as he was old enough to fight in the battle of Philippi in 42 BC. He died in 32 BC.