Newly Discovered Underground Oceans on Uranus’ Satellites

An analysis has emerged that there is a high possibility that there is an underground ocean on the four satellites orbiting Uranus, the seventh planet in the solar system. The space science community has already found moons in the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn that seem to have subterranean oceans. The argument is being made that the ocean may be a relatively common natural object in the solar system.

According to the US science media Space.com on the 6th (local time), scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found signs of an underground ocean in four satellites orbiting Uranus. The subterranean sea is the sea that exists under the crust made of hard ice. The research results were published in the latest issue of the international journal Geophysical Research.

There are 27 satellites orbiting Uranus. According to the research team, the possibility of subterranean seas existing on the four largest satellites, Titania (diameter 1580 km), Oberon (diameter 1520 km), Umbriel (diameter 1170 km), and Ariel (diameter 1160 km) has been detected. done.

This research result was obtained by reanalyzing the observations of Voyager 2, which passed by Uranus in 1986, using the latest computer modeling technology. From the 1980s to the present, geological and chemical knowledge obtained from observations of satellites orbiting Jupiter and Saturn as well as the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto were incorporated into computer modeling.

Previously, the space science community believed that Titania Bay, the largest of Uranus’ satellites, would have an underground sea. A celestial body must be large enough to create heat while decaying radioactive isotopes in the center, and it was thought that such a thing could only happen in Titania, the largest of Uranus’ moons.

It was predicted that Titania’s own internal heat would melt the interior of the ice that enveloped the moon’s surface like a crust, and the resulting water would create an underground ocean. However, through this study, a new conclusion has been drawn that internal heat enough to create an underground sea will also exist in Oberon, Umbriel, and Ariel. The researchers estimated that the thickness of the underground ocean of the four moons of Uranus would reach about 30 km.

There is another reason why the researchers concluded that Uranus’ four moons may have subterranean oceans. This is because it has been confirmed through computer modeling that ammonia is dissolved in the sea. Ammonia acts as an antifreeze that prevents water from freezing. In addition to ammonia, the subterranean sea also contained chlorides. Chloride also helps water to remain liquid in cold weather.

The findings suggest that subterranean oceans may be relatively common in the solar system. Already, the space science community believes that Jupiter’s moons Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto and Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have subterranean oceans. Jupiter and Saturn, the largest of the planets in the solar system and with the strongest gravity, squeezed the satellites orbiting them, and the frictional heat generated at this time melted the ice beneath the satellites and created oceans.

Uranus’ gravity is relatively weak, so it can’t squeeze the moons around it. However, due to the satellite’s own internal heat and unique substances mixed with the sea, the result is the same result: the formation of an ‘subterranean sea’. In an official announcement, NASA said, “In the future, we plan to make observations with a spectrometer that can simultaneously observe ammonia and chloride to further clarify the fact that the subsurface ocean of the satellite of Uranus actually exists.”