Large moon of Uranus may explain odd tilt

New Scientist ^ | Friday, December 4, 2009 | Ker Than

[SunkenCiv]

Please try to resist the childish jokes, but the fact is that the odd tilt of Uranus may be the result of a particularly large moon.

Uranus spins on an axis almost parallel with the plane of the solar system, rather than perpendicular to it -- though why it does this nobody knows. One theory is that the tilt is the result of a collision with an Earth-sized object, but this "hasn't succeeded in explaining much of anything", says Ignacio Mosqueira of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. Why, for example, are the orbits of Uranus's 27 known moons not also tilted?

Now Gwenaël Boué and Jacques Laskar at the Paris Observatory in France have come up with another explanation: Uranus may once have had an unusually massive extra moon. If the moon had 1 per cent of the mass of Uranus -- and orbited at a certain distance -- it would slightly unbalance the planet and increase its wobble about its axis. After about 2 million years, the wobbling could have become exaggerated enough to tip the planet on its side, their model has shown (arxiv.org/abs/0912.0181).

The moon may since have been ejected by the tug of another planet passing nearby. Its fate is unclear, but it may have crashed into another gas giant if it is not still roaming the solar system.

William Ward at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado finds the theory plausible but points out there is no evidence for the extra moon other than the effect Boué and Laskar suggest it has had on Uranus's orientation.

[SunkenCiv]

I suppose you now want to talk about Uranus?

[SunkenCiv]

whoops, should have changed that to Gwenael Boue...

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[SunkenCiv]

Solving Solar System Quandaries Is Simple:
Just Flip-flop The Position Of Uranus And Neptune
Science Daily | Thursday, December 13, 2007
adapted from Arizona State University materials
Posted on 12/30/2007 5:44:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1946112/posts

[Krankor]

Well, according to the article, Uranus spins on an axis- which sounds painful.

[sinanju]

“Huh! Huh! Huh! He said “a particularly large moon” Beavis.”

“Yah! Yah! Butthead! ‘odd tilt’!”

“Huh! Huh! Huh!”

[BigCinBigD]

“Uranus spins on an axis”

So, Uranus is a spinner. I always thought of it as a swinger...

[The Cajun]

The moon may since have been ejected by the tug of another planet passing nearby. Its fate is unclear, but it may have crashed into another gas giant if it is not still roaming the solar system.

Securely putting on tin foil hat. Venus?

[notdownwidems]

But what about...oh, never mind

[Defiant]

Please try to resist the childish jokes, but the fact is that the odd tilt of Uranus may be the result of a particularly large moon.

Is there really any need to keep that stupid name for the planet? It's not like it's an ancient name or anything, like Mars or Venus, which were gods to our ancestors. I don't think Uranus was discovered until modern times. Whoever named it screwed up big time. There's really no reason to keep that name, and lots of reason to get rid of it.

I vote for Iceboggle.

[TigersEye]

I try to sit up straight. Even my grade school teachers harassed me about it.

[kbennkc]

but the fact is that the odd tilt of Uranus may be the result of a particularly large moon

The tilt can be explained because the school bus windows only go down 1/4 of the way . The moon and Uranus remain fixed in relative position .

[BigCinBigD]

“Is there really any need to keep that stupid name for the planet? It’s not like it’s an ancient name or anything, like Mars or Venus, which were gods to our ancestors. I don’t think Uranus was discovered until modern times. Whoever named it screwed up big time. There’s really no reason to keep that name, and lots of reason to get rid of it.”

I agree compleatly! it should be named for it’s discover. Dr.Alfred U.Gotlimdik.

[kbennkc]

Whoever named it screwed up big time

Those scientists have a lot of built up anger for the way they were treated by normal people . It is their way of getting back . Earth probably means planet of pee-pee head jocks in Andromedan .

[Nik Naym]

We could always rename it “butthole”.

[BigCinBigD]

“We could always rename it “butthole”.”

Approaching Butthole Captain.

Standard orbit Mr.Sulu...

[dljordan]

From Wikipedia. "Uranus (pronounced /ˈjʊərənəs, jʊˈreɪnəs/) is the Latinized form of Ouranos (Οὐρανός), the Greek word for sky ( a cognate of the English word air and the Hindi word oura (to fly)). In Greek mythology Ouranos or Father Sky, is personified as the son and husband of Gaia, Mother Earth (Hesiod, Theogony). Uranus and Gaia were ancestors of most of the Greek gods, but no cult addressed directly to Uranus survived into Classical times,[1] and Uranus does not appear among the usual themes of Greek painted pottery. Elemental Earth, Sky and Styx might be joined, however, in a solemn invocation in Homeric epic.[2]"

[GCC Catholic]

My Greek/Latin mythology is rusty, but I'll give it a crack to maybe shed some more light on the subject.

Ouranos had murdered his father Cronus, first of the gods, who was also the father of the Titans, predecessors to the Olympian gods. Someone (an oracle of some sort - I forget who) told him that one of his children would murder him in the manner he had murdered his father. So he ate each of his children as they were born - except that Gaia kept the last of them (Zeus) safe by wrapping a stone in infant clothing, which Ouranos then ate.

It was Zeus who slew his father, freeing his siblings (who apparently weren't killed by being eaten), who then waged war against the remaining Titans. Fun fact: Aphrodite was born out of the dismembered remains of Ouranos after they had been cast out to sea.

Since Ouranos was killed, and his brother Titans lost to the Olympian gods, it is no surprise that no cult to him arose.

That's as much as I recall... feel free to check/correct.

[Yossarian]

In "Futurama" (the Matt Groening animated series set 1000 years from now), scientists renamed "Uranus", due to all the silly jokes.

They named it to "Urectum".

[jmcenanly]

I suppose on its way out, our wandering moon did this

Its called Miranda, as all of he moons in this system have names from Shakespeare or Spenser. From the looks of it, it should have been called 'Frankenstein'.