The planet Uranus has 27 moons, the smallest and closest to the planet is called “Miranda”, and its diameter is less than 500 km.
It features a surface Mirandawhich is also called the “Uranus Fifth”, is unusual, as it includes regions of such a geological mixture of fractured terrain that one might think that Miranda It is composed of pieces stuck together, and this adhesion appears inconsistent
And in study In a recent report published in The Planetary Science Journal, two researchers led by the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute in California investigated the possible origin of regolith deposits, or rock debris, on Earth. Moon of Uranus، Miranda.
The regolith is defined as a heterogeneous layer that covers rocks and consists of dust, dirt, and thick fractured rocks. The surface material on both the Moon and Mars is usually referred to as rigolith or rhyolite, in contrast to the soil on Earth, as the soil provides nutrients and minerals necessary for growth, while it can Considering regolith as dead soil.
The purpose of this was thstudy It is to determine Miranda’s internal structure, and in particular its internal temperature, which can help determine if it is a moon Miranda It houses an internal environment.
Dr Chloe Bedingfield, a scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, said: “It is unlikely that a moon will be able to Miranda The subterranean ocean has been preserved to this day due to its small size. However, the thick regolith layer will act like an insulating blanket, trapping heat inside Miranda And it enhances the longevity of the subsurface ocean for some time. This trapped heat would also promote internal activity for longer periods of time in the Mirandasuch as geological activity that has formed one or more coronas Miranda or the global rift system.
The results were determinedstudy Three possible sources of Miranda’s thick regolith. First, the moon can be covered with dust after colliding with a large cosmic body, which ejected a large amount of matter, which later settled into a layer of equal thickness and material on the surface. However, on the visible side of the Moon, there are no traces of such a large collision, so it will not be possible to confirm or refute this hypothesis yet.
And secondly, volcanic glaciers could have been the source of the regolith during the period in which it was Miranda geologically more active.
The third, and most likely, source is that of the Moon Miranda “pick up” 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 was formed.
Dr Bedingfield said: “If material from Uranus’ rings is the primary source of Miranda’s regolith, this could indicate that Miranda formed from the substance of the ring and/or Miranda It migrated through the rings in its early history. In these scenarios, Uranus’ rings may have been thicker in the past. However, future modeling work is needed to investigate these possibilities further.”
Discover a moon Miranda First seen 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 faults across surface, with scientists continuing to this day to debate the processes behind the young moon’s intriguing features.
The new paper stresses that follow-up studies are required to better understand the likely possibilities, other than Uranus ring deposits, for regolith. Miranda thick.
Quoted from Russia Today
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