Miranda: Tidal Heating Responsible for Current Appearance of Uranus’ Icy Moon

Sep 20, 2014 by News Staff
« Previous
|
Next »

Brown University planetary scientists in a new study have found that tidal heating is the main reason responsible for the present appearance of Miranda – a small, icy moon of Uranus.

Southern hemisphere of Miranda; projection is orthographic, centered on the south pole; visible from left to right are Elsinore, Inverness, and Arden coronae. Image credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Ted Stryk.

Southern hemisphere of Miranda; projection is orthographic, centered on the south pole; visible from left to right are Elsinore, Inverness, and Arden coronae. Image credit: NASA / Jet Propulsion Laboratory / Ted Stryk.

With a radius of 235.8 km, Miranda is the smallest and innermost of Uranus’s five major moons.

Despite its relatively small size, the icy moon appears to have experienced an episode of intense resurfacing that resulted in the formation of at least three unique polygonal-shaped regions called coronae.

These surface features, named Arden, Elsinore and Inverness, are visible in Miranda’s southern hemisphere, and each one is at least 200 km across.

Arden corona is the largest one. It has ridges and troughs with up to 2 km of relief.

Elsinore corona has an outer belt that is about 80 km wide and elevated above the surrounding terrain by 100 m.

Inverness corona has a trapezoidal shape with a large, bright chevron at its center.

Using numerical models, Dr Noah Hammond and Dr Amy Barr of the Brown University’s Department of Geological Sciences show that convection in Miranda’s ice mantle likely formed the coronae.

“During convection, warm buoyant ice rose toward the surface, driving concentric surface extension beneath the locations of the coronae, causing the formation of extensional tectonic faults,” they explained.

The internal energy that powered convection probably came from tidal heating.

“Tidal heating would have occurred when Miranda was in an eccentric orbit – moving closer to and further from Uranus. This caused the tidal forces from the gas giant to vary, periodically stretching and squeezing Miranda and generating heat in its ice shell.”

“Convection powered by tidal heating explains the locations of the coronae, the deformation patterns within the coronae, and the estimated heat flow during corona formation.”

The findings appear online in the journal Geology.

_____

Noah P. Hammond & Amy C. Barr. Global resurfacing of Uranus’s moon Miranda by convection. Geology, published online September 15, 2014; doi: 10.1130/G36124.1

Published in
Tagged as
You Might Like
Mastcam mosaic from the Sol 1686 rover location looking behind the rover (downslope) at the transition point between the Sutton Island and Blunts Point Murray members. Images from Sols 1685-1689 display sedimentary textures of dark-toned manganese-rich sandstones and nearby rocks. Dashed line boxes in the large mosaic are shown as insets along the bottom of figure. Small red outlines show the approximate locations and extent of ChemCam observations. Throughout this transition area, dark-toned sandstones (presumably manganese-rich based on ChemCam observations at three locations) overlie light-toned materials. Insets from left to right: (a) Denning Brook, a manganese-rich fine-grained dark-toned sandstone ChemCam observation; (b) and (c) two light-toned blocks with cross-stratified textures, highlighted with yellow lines, 6 m away from Denning Brook and to the upper left in the large mosaic; (d) dark-toned materials (center of mosaic); and (E1) Newport Ledge, (E2) AEGIS post 1685a, (E3) Sugarloaf Mountain, three thin planar laminated dark-toned sandstones. Image credit: NASA / Caltech-JPL / MSSS.

Manganese-Rich Sandstones Point to Earth-Like Environment on Ancient Mars

This image of the Martian Inca City was captured by the High Resolution Stereo Camera onboard ESA’s Mars Express orbiter on February 27, 2024. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Mars Express Spots ‘Spiders’ at Outskirts of Martian ‘Inca City’

This global view of Io was obtained in January 1999 by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft. Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona.

Study: Jupiter’s Moon Io Has Been Volcanically Active for All of Its History

Illustrative workflow showcasing the process of comparative genomics analysis of Enterobacter bugandensis, evaluating its prevalence and metabolic interactions within the microbial community, and its successful adaptation within the ISS habitat. Image credit: Sengupta et al., doi: 10.1186/s40168-024-01777-1.

Biologists Find Mutated and Genetically Distinct Strains of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacterium on ISS

Kane & Byrne describe Venus as an anchor point from which planetary scientists can better understand the conditions that preclude life on exoplanets. Image credit: Kane & Byrne, doi: 10.1038/s41550-024-02228-5.

Uninhabitable Venus Offers Lessons about Potential for Extraterrestrial Life

The JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft imaged Io, the most geologically active body in our Solar System, on February 3, 2024, from a distance of about 7,904 km (4,911 miles). Image credit: NASA / SwRI / MSSS.

NASA’s Juno Mission Provides Close-Ups of Intriguing Features on Io

This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Planetary Researchers Solve Mystery of How Pluto Got Its Pear-Shaped Feature

Share This Page