Two researchers from the SETI Institute in California investigated the origin of the thick regolith deposits on the moon Miranda. The purpose of the study was to find out if Miranda harbors an internal ocean or not.
According to a scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center, it is unlikely that Miranda will retain a subsurface ocean in the future. A thick regolith layer would act like an insulation blanket, trapping heat inside Miranda and prolonging the ocean's life. The geologic activity that formed one or more of Miranda's coronae or the global rift system would have been stimulated by the trapped heat.
The term regolith is used to refer to the surface material on both the moon and Mars. Regolith can be considered dead soil due to the fact that it doesn't provide the necessary nutrition and minerals for plants to grow.
The thickness of Miranda's surface regolith was determined through the analysis ofuted craters. The analyses included measuring the crater depth-diameter ratios, crater size-frequency distribution, and the central mound within a specific crater. Three potential sources for Miranda's thick regolith were found by the study. The ring deposit hypothesis is supported by the large spatial extent and large thickness of the regolith.
"If material from the rings of Uranus was the primary source of Miranda's regolith, that could mean that Miranda migrated through the rings in its early history," said Dr. Beddingfield. "Uranus' rings might have been thinner in the past." Future modeling work needs to be done to investigate these possibilities further.
On February 16, 1948, Miranda was discovered at the McDonald Observatory in western Texas, and has only been visited by NASA's Voyager 2 spaceship in 1986. This up- close encounter revealed a chaotic and intriguing world with craters, valleys, and chasms across its surface, with scientists still debating the processes behind the small moon's interesting features. Coronae are large deformations that scientists theorize were formed from tectonic activity. How can we better understand Miranda's appearance?
The regolith may have helped support coronae formation because it would reduce heat loss. Miranda's surface is thought to have been broken by upwelling diapirs. It's possible that the coronae got their shapes from the pre-existing areas of weakness in the lithoosphere. The existence of Miranda's regolith allows us to get a sense of the relative timing of events and shows that geologic activity likely occurred over a long period of time.
The paper states that follow-up studies are needed to better understand the possibilities other than the ring deposits of Miranda's regolith.
Dr. Beddingfield said that Miranda's regolith could be explained by processes other than ring material accumulate.
There is evidence for thick deposit on the moon Enceladus. The observed regolith on Miranda could be the result of one or more giant impact event events. The two other scenarios are feasible and warrant further investigation.
There are no scheduled missions to revisit this far out in the solar system, despite the fact that the only spacecraft to have visited Uranus and its many moons is the current one.
The Planetary Science Journal contains information on Miranda's Thick Regolith Indicates a Major Mantling event from an unknown source. There is a report titled "10847/PSJ/ac9a4e".
Journal information: The Planetary Science Journal
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