There may be some hidden oceans lurking around Uranus.
New evidence suggests that there are one or two gas giants 27 known months This probably harbors a liquid ocean beneath the outer surface of the rocks and ice of its crust. Possible causes of the seeding of the space around Uranus with plasma are Miranda and Ariel, one or both of which could explode with an oceanic spray.
The data, which comes from the Voyager 2 mission that flew past the planet on its journey into space nearly 40 years ago—the only spacecraft that has ever done so—makes an excellent case for sending another probe to Uranus.
“We have demonstrated the case for several years now that the measurement of energetic particles and electromagnetic fields is important not only for understanding the extraterrestrial environment but also for contributing to larger planetary science investigations,” He said Astronom Ian Cohen dari Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
“Turns out this could be the case for data older than mine. It shows how important it is to get into the system and explore it live.”
Cohen and his team present their findings March 16 in the journal 54th Congress of Lunar and Planetary SciencesA paper describing it has been accepted for publication in Geophysics Research Letter.
When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, it did Low-energy charged particle instrument Take something odd: charged particles which seems stuck certain area Uranus magnetosphere. They should spread out, but they remain confined to the equator, near the orbits of Miranda and Ariel.
on time, Scientists believe That odd profile suggests injection of energetic electrons from a source such as a Storm in Uranus’s magnetic field. But after taking a closer look, Cohen and colleagues found that the electrons didn’t exhibit the properties one would expect from sub-injection.
This opens up a huge can of worms, as scientists are now back to square one, trying to understand where electrons come from. Of particular interest, they say, is the angle of inclination of the electrons: the angle of the velocity vector with respect to the magnetic field.
To maintain the pitch angle observed by Voyager 2, it would need a constant source of electrons, significant enough to overcome the scattering and loss that would occur due to plasma waves in the planet’s magnetosphere.
Without a source of this kind, in the right place and at the right angle, the team determined through modeling, the pitch-angle electron distribution would become uniform in just a matter of hours.
Digging deeper into the Voyager 2 data, the team looked for such sources. Their modeling shows a clear and indisputable maxima in the space between Miranda and Ariel, suggesting a source of energetic ions in that region.
As for what these ions can produce… Well, in the 37 years since Voyager 2 visited Uranus, scientists have made some headway in that regard. Voyager 2 made a similar discovery in space around Saturn, years later uncovering Cassini data that ice geysers were produced in what we now know as the oceanic moon Enceladus. Another similar discovery led us to Jupiter’s moon Europa.
“It is not uncommon for energetic particle measurements to be groundbreaking for the discovery of world oceans,” kata Cohen.
As for one of the moons — Miranda, the smallest of Uranus’s five major moons, or Ariel, the brightest — it’s around 50-50 at this point. Can also. or both. Both moons show signs of relatively recent geological emergence, consistent with an eruption of molten material from within.
However, so far, we only have one data set. Planetary scientists are increasingly calling for missions dedicated to Uranus, possibly with Neptune. This planet has so many strange quirks that learning more about them can only be a truly exciting and rewarding experience.
The prospect of a wet moon is just the icing on the stinky cake.
“The data is consistent with a very exciting potential for the most active oceanic moons out there.” kata Cohen. “We can always do more extensive modeling, but until we get new data, the results will always be limited.”
Search is presented in 54th Congress of Lunar and Planetary SciencesAnd that is accepted for publication inside Geophysics Research Letter.
