has Planet Uranus 27 moons, the smallest and closest to the planet is called “Miranda”, and its diameter is less than 500 km, it was reported. RT.
Miranda’s surface, also called “Uranus Quintus,” is unusual in that it includes regions with a geological mix of soil fractured to the point that one might think that Miranda is made of pieces glued together, and this adhesion appears tenuous..
In a recent study published in The planetary science journalTwo researchers led by the Institute’s Carl Sagan Center IF YOU in California he studied the possible origin of regolith deposits on Uranus’ moon Miranda.
Regolith is defined as a heterogeneous layer covering rocks and consists of dust, earth and thick fractured rocks, the surface material is usually indicated on both Moon and Mars ryogolith or ryolite, in contrast to soil on earth, as soil provides the nutrients and minerals needed for growth, while rigolith can be considered dead soil.
The purpose of this study was to determine the internal structure of Miranda, and in particular its internal temperature, which could help determine whether Miranda hosts an internal ocean..
“Miranda is unlikely to contain a subsurface ocean to date due to its small size,” said NASA Ames Research Center scientist Dr. Chloe Bedingfield. heat within Miranda and increasing the longevity of the subsurface ocean for some time This trapped heat would also promote internal activity over longer periods of time in Miranda, such as geological activity that formed one or more crowns of Miranda or the global rift system“.
The results of the study identified three possible sources of the thick Miranda regolith. First, the moon can be covered in dust after colliding with a large cosmic body, which ejected a large amount of matter, which subsequently settled on the surface in a layer of equal thickness and material. However, there are no traces of such a large collision on the visible side of the Moon, so it will not be possible to confirm or refute this hypothesis yet..
Second, glacial volcanoes could have been the source of the nutrient during the time Miranda was most geologically active..
The third and most likely source is that Miranda “collected” dust from the surrounding outer space. The source of the dust could be the collision of Uranus with a large cosmic body, after which a large cloud of small debris formed..
Dr Bedingfield said: ‘If the Uranus ring material is the primary source of Miranda’s regolith, this could indicate that Miranda formed from the ring material and/or that Miranda migrated through the rings in its early history. In these scenarios, Uranus’ rings could be thicker in However, future modeling work is needed to further investigate these possibilities“.
Miranda was first discovered on February 16, 1948 by Gerard P. Kuiper at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, and only visited by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986. This close encounter revealed a chaotic and intriguing world of craters, valleys, and fissures across its surface, with scientists continuing to this day to debate the processes behind the young moon’s intriguing features..
The new paper points out that follow-up studies are needed to better understand the likely odds of Miranda’s thick regolith beyond the Uranus ring deposits..
