Icy moon of Uranus may have once hid watery secret, Voyager 2 archives reveal
Over the last few decades, planetary scientists have been steadily adding to the list of moons in our solar system that may harbor interior oceans either currently or at some point in their past. For the most part, these moons (such as Europa or Enceladus) have been gravitationally bound to the gas giants Jupiter or Saturn.
Recently, though, planetary scientists have been turning their attention further afield, towards the ice giant Uranus, the coldest planet in the solar system. And now, new research based on images taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft has suggested that Miranda, a small Uranian icy moon, may have once possessed a deep liquid water ocean beneath its surface.
When the Voyager 2 spacecraft cruised past Miranda in 1986, it captured images of its southern hemisphere. The resulting pictures revealed a smattering of different geological features on its surface, including grooved terrain, rough scarps, and cratered areas.
Researchers, such as Tom Nordheim, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), wanted to explain Miranda's bizarre geology by reverse engineering the surface features, working out what type of internal structures could best explain how the moon came to look like it does today.
