Sycorax is a witch living on an island in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. She enchanted the island, was the mother of Caliban, and imprisoned the spirit Ariel for disobedience. Sycorax dies before the arrival of Prospero and his daughter, Miranda.


Sycorax is a moon of Uranus. Its orbital radius is approximately 12.2 million km from Uranus and is about 160 km in diameter, but this size estimate is based on the moon's apparent brightness and the assumption that it has an albedo of about 0.07. Its orbit is retrograde and highly inclined. Sycorax's composition is probably a mixture of rock and ice, and its unusually red color suggests a historical link with the Kuiper belt; Sycorax is probably a captured Kuiper Belt object.

Sycorax was discovered on September 6 - September 7, 1997 by Brett Gladman, Phil Nicholson, Joseph Burns, and JJ Kavelaars using the 200-inch Hale telescope; they also discovered the moon Caliban at the same time.