Everything about Miranda Moon totally explained
Miranda (
mə-ran'-də) is the smallest and innermost of
Uranus' five major
moons.
It was discovered by
Gerard Kuiper on
1948-02-16 at
McDonald Observatory. It was named after
Miranda from
William Shakespeare's play
The Tempest by Kuiper in his report of the discovery. The adjectival form of the name is
Mirandan. It is also designated
Uranus V.
So far the only close-up images of Miranda are from the
Voyager 2 probe, which made observations of the moon during its Uranus flyby in January, 1986. During the flyby the southern hemisphere of the moon was pointed towards the
Sun so only that part was studied. It is geologically the most active body in the Uranian system.
Physical characteristics
[[Image:Miranda_scarp_rotated.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Close-up view of
Verona Rupes, a large fault scarp on Miranda; possibly 5 km (3 miles) high. The ridges probably represent extensional tilt blocks. The canyons probably represent
grabens formed by
extensional faulting. Other features may be due to
cryovolcanic eruptions of icy magma. The diapirs may have changed the density distribution within the moon, which could have caused Miranda to reorient itself, similar to a process believed to have occurred at
Saturn's geologically active moon
Enceladus. Miranda is one of the few bodies in the solar system in which the equatorial circumference is shorter than the pole-to-pole circumference, likely a consequence of the diapir activity.
Miranda's past geological activity is believed to have been driven by
tidal heating at a time when its orbit was more eccentric than currently. Early in its history, Miranda was apparently captured in a 3:1
orbital resonance with
Umbriel, from which it subsequently escaped. The resonance would have increased
orbital eccentricity; resulting tidal friction due to time-varying
tidal forces from Uranus would have caused warming of the moon's interior. In the Uranus system, due to the planet's lesser degree of
oblateness, and the larger relative size of its satellites, escape from a mean motion resonance is much easier than for satellites of
Jupiter or
Saturn. Miranda's orbital
inclination (4.34°) is unusually high for a body so close to the planet. Miranda probably escaped from its resonance with Umbriel via a secondary resonance, and the mechanism of this escape is believed to explain why its orbital inclination is more than 10 times those of the other large Uranian moons (see
Uranus' natural satellites).
An earlier theory, proposed shortly after the
Voyager 2 flyby and now out of favor, was that a previous incarnation of Miranda was shattered by a massive impact, with the fragments reassembling into the current strange pattern.
Scientists recognize the following
geological features on Miranda:
Miranda in popular culture
Astronomy Domine, a song by Pink Floyd, refers to Miranda as well as Oberon and Titania.
In Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy the moon is visited by the characters Ann Clayborne and Zo Boone.Further Information
Get more info on 'Miranda Moon'.
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