From left to right: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon, imaged by Voyager 2 in 1986. (NASA/JPL/MPIA)
These are the largest moons of Uranus...I always wanted to say that!
Posted on 09/15/2020 10:18:51 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Uranus, far from Earth in the darker region of the Solar System's planetary reach, isn't alone. It's accompanied by a retinue of moons - 27, to be precise. Far and dim, these moons are difficult to study, but astronomers have made an accidental discovery while observing Uranus.
According to infrared images of the five main moons of Uranus, their composition is closer to that of dwarf planets like Pluto and Haumea - compact, rocky objects with an icy crust - than the more fluffy composition of the smaller Uranian moons.
Uranus orbits the Sun at an average distance around 20 times that of Earth. We haven't sent many spacecraft out that far - only NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has had a close encounter with Uranus, back in 1986 on its way to the edge of the Solar System and beyond.
Apart from those Voyager 2 observations, our study of the planet and its satellites has relied on telescopes closer to home - on Earth, and in Earth's orbital vicinity. That makes the moons very challenging to see; they're much smaller and reflect much less sunlight than Uranus, so they get outshone to the point of invisibility.
"The moons, which are between 500 and 7,400 times fainter, are at such a small distance from Uranus that they merge with the similarly bright artifacts," said astronomer Gábor Marton of Konkoly Observatory in Hungary. "Only the brightest moons, Titania and Oberon, stand out a little from the surrounding glare."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...
What happens when five moon Uranus? Do you blush?
From left to right: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon, imaged by Voyager 2 in 1986. (NASA/JPL/MPIA)
These are the largest moons of Uranus...I always wanted to say that!
They’re not moons, they’re hemorrhoids.
You owe me a keyboard.
They’re not moons, they’re hemorrhoids.
~~~
They’re asteroids if they break free
Aren’t t hey actually dingleberries? :-)
I don't know how they'd know (maybe Alexa told them, that nosy bitch), but I think they need to mind their own business.
If they don’t break free they’re Klingons.
Did Michelle snicker as she wrote that headline?
Is she like Amy on BBT?
Asstronomy.
She wants to see Uranus up close.
I’m here for the comments.
I picture her grinning just like that as she wrote this headline.
Not going to post an extensive rebuttal, but I’ve read Triton a moon of Neptune is closer in composition to Pluto..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triton_(moon)
"Uranus Has Stinky Clouds" (in "Science News For Students")
(The first statement in that article is "Uranus stinks", and they explain in scientific terms why they believe that to be the case in the rest of the article.)
Isn’t this basically part of Velikovsky’s hypothesis? Though I think he speculated that Pluto was a former moon of Saturn rather than Uranus.
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