“Uranus’s Moons May Have Oceans Hiding Beneath Ice Layers, According to Experts”

Uranus’s two moons, Titania and Oberon, may even have enough water to support life.

Launch Mashableexperts recently looked at more than 10 years of information collected by the Voyager 2 probe, which flew to Uranus in 1986 during an extended space mission.

They then re-analyzed the data using new computer modeling techniques. As a result, four of the ice giant’s 27 moons (Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon) may have liquid water sandwiched between their core and crust.

Experts published the results of the study in the Journal of Geophysical Research and described it as a Uranian water world with salty oceans tens of miles deep.

This makes these four moons on the list of “water worlds” in the Solar System under study.

The new computer model the scientists used worked on knowledge from previous missions, which have discovered ocean worlds in the Solar System including Saturn’s moon Enceladus and the dwarf planet Ceres.

“In the case of small bodies like dwarf planets and moons, planetary scientists have previously found evidence of oceans in some unexpected places, including the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto, and Mimas, Saturn’s moon,” said Julie Castillo-Rogez, lead author of the study in a statement. statement as reported by the official website NASA.

“So there are mechanisms that we don’t fully understand,” he added.

The computer model was used to measure how porous the surface of the Uranian moons is. Experts have found that the surface of the moons may be sufficiently insulated to retain the internal heat needed to contain the oceans.

In addition, they discovered what could be a potential source of heat in the moon’s rocky mantle, which is releasing hot fluids, and would help the oceans maintain a warm environment.

Such a scenario is highly probable in Titania and Oberon, where the oceans may even be warm enough to potentially support a habitable environment.

Still, internal heat isn’t the only factor contributing to the oceans beneath the moon’s surface. The key findings in the study suggest that chloride, as well as ammonia, may be abundant in the oceans of the largest icy moon.

Ammonia has long been known as an antifreeze. In addition, modeling shows that the salt that may be in the water will be another source of antifreeze, keeping the body’s internal ocean.

Nevertheless, experts realize that there are still many questions about the moons of Uranus. “We need to develop new models for various assumptions about the origin of the moon in order to guide planning for future observations,” said Castillo-Rogez.

(can/lth)