Astronomers Found Something Cold and Wet Near Uranus
The Uranian moon Miranda may contain a liquid water ocean, according to a team of researchers that recently mapped the satellite’s surface and modeled tidal stress on it.
The team published its study earlier this month in The Planetary Science Journal, suggesting the “plausible existence” of an ocean at least 100 kilometers (62 miles) thick on Miranda within the past 100 to 500 million years. Though the researchers don’t think such a deep water body is still present, liquid water may remain under the moon’s surface, as one researcher told the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. If Miranda had frozen completely, the team believes there would be certain cracks on the moon’s surface—evidence of the frozen ocean’s expansion within. No such cracks are present, based on the researchers’ review of the available imagery.
“To find evidence of an ocean inside a small object like Miranda is incredibly surprising,” said Tom Nordheim, a planetary scientist at the laboratory and co-author of the recent paper, in a lab release. “It helps build on the story that some of these moons at Uranus may be really interesting—that there may be several ocean worlds around one of the most distant planets in our solar system, which is both exciting and bizarre,” Nordheim added.
