Uranus' Moon Miranda Got Some 'Weird' Internal Dynamics

For decades, astronomers are fascinated by the pale blue-green enigma in space, the planet Uranus. Its extreme distance, some 1.6 billion miles (2.6 billion km) from Earth is just part of its attraction.

While it is comparatively easy to gaze upon neighboring celestial bodies like the Moon and the planets Mars and Venus, Uranus is difficult to see without the most powerful telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope. As technology has advanced, it has unlocked more secrets of the strange, tilted planet (it orbits on its side compared to other planets in the solar system), from the fact that it may rain diamonds to discovering previously-unknown moons.

Now a trio of recent studies has added another cloud of questions about the planet when it was revealed that one of its moons, Miranda, likely has a stirring ocean beneath its surface, meaning it could harbor extraterrestrial life, and that the planet’s own internal dynamics are more bizarre than we ever imagined.

In a study published in The Planetary Science Journal, University of North Dakota astronomer Caleb Strong explained that their research revealed Miranda likely has a subsurface ocean, which Strong described as "weird."

"It was not expected based on previous estimates of its size, which means there are likely many surprises awaiting us in the Uranus system," Strong told Salon.

He added that it is premature to assume the presence of oceans means there is life on the planet, telling Salon that "we really don't know enough about Miranda or the Uranus system to say. While interesting, the question of life is beyond the scope of our paper."

Astrobiologists believe that extraterrestrial life, if it exists, would require a planet or planetary moon with water and carbon in order to form organic molecules, which is why there is interest in Miranda.

The Miranda paper relied on images taken from the Voyager 2 probe, the one and only spacecraft to visit Uranus, to reach these conclusions. The Voyager 2 probe was also used by a recent study from the journal Nature Astronomy which used those images to learn about the magnetosphere of Uranus.

A magnetosphere is the region around a planet where its magnetic field is dominant, protecting the planet from the Sun’s destructive particles. According to Jamie Jasinski, a space plasma physicist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, past space voyages have provided mysterious readings about the exact nature of the Uranus magnetosphere. Their new research transforms everything.