Icy moon of Uranus may have once hid watery secret, Voyager 2 archives reveal

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Icy moon of Uranus may have once hid watery secret, Voyager 2 archives reveal
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Conor Feehly is a New Zealand-based science writer. He has earned a master's in science communication from the University of Otago, Dunedin. His writing has appeared in Cosmos Magazine, Discover Magazine and ScienceAlert.

Over the last few decades, planetary scientists have been steadily adding to the list of moons in our solar system that may harbor interior oceans either currently or at some point in their past. For the most part, these moons have been gravitationally bound to the gas giants Jupiter or Saturn.

The team mapped the moon's various surface features, such as the cracks and ridges seen by Voyager 2, before developing a computer model to test an array of possible compositions of the moon's interior that could best explain the stress patterns seen on the moon's surface. By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.Miranda has a radius of just 146 miles , which means the ocean would have taken up almost half the moon's entire body. It also means that finding such an ocean is unlikely."To find evidence of an ocean inside a small object like Miranda is incredibly surprising," Nordheim said in a statement about the new research.

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