Miranda - moon of Uranus

--------- #1367 - Miranda - moon of Uranus

- Attachment: Miranda image

- Uranus’s biggest moons are medium- size, smaller than our Moon. There are 27 moons total. Here are the big 5:

---------------------------------------------------DIAMETER -------- Compare to Moon

----------------------- Miranda --------------- 293 miles ---------------- 27%
----------------------- Ariel ------------------- 719 miles ---------------- 67%
----------------------- Umbriel ---------------- 726 miles ---------------- 67%
----------------------- Titania ------------------ 980 miles ---------------- 91%
----------------------- Oberon ------------------ 956 miles ---------------- 88%

- There are also 13 smaller inner moons and 9 outer irregular moons. The outer moons are mostly captured objects, several are orbiting in the opposite direction.

- Miranda is the smallest of the medium- size moons. Voyager 2 spacecraft made a lucky flyby on its way to Neptune. In 1986 it came within 19,000 miles and got this picture. Astronomers expected to find a cratered ice ball. Instead images found the surface to have tremendous tectonic features and relatively few craters. The cliff walls of the canyons are higher than the Grand Canyons. Some are 12 miles deep versus the Grand Canyon’s 1 mile deep cliff.

- Astronomers speculate that Miranda had episodes of tidal heating billion of years ago.

- Other astronomers speculate the Miranda survived a massive collision that shattered it into pieces. The pieces reformed from the chunks that were left behind. This comes from what appears to be an incoherent thrown together surface.

- This was a fortuitous flyby with no plans for a repeat visit. It is hard to learn more in the meantime. It takes 9 years for a spacecraft to reach Uranus. Miranda’s secrets are safe for quite a while. An announcement will be made someday, stay tuned.

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707-536-3272, Friday, December 30, 2011