What do you feel like? Good news, bad news? I
feel like I've been feeling a lot like Taylor
lately, and I've been bad news heavy. I've been
rubbing off on you too much. Maybe we do some
good news. Well, let's see if I even have any.
And don't just make it look like good news. It
better be good news. Well, I don't know. We'll
see what's filed. OK, this one is from earth
.com. I didn't realize that the whole planet
had a website. Yeah, it needs it. It's underrepresented.
It's totally under -representative and so much
so that I've never even heard of its website.
Moon named Miranda orbiting Uranus seems to have
an ocean and possibly life. Oh wow. I didn't
even know it had moons, honestly. I can't keep
track of who has moons and who doesn't have moons.
I'm really having trouble talking today. Well
good luck with it before we are in a talking
sphere right now. This one's by Eric Rawls who's
representing the earth on earth .com a recent
study points to an exciting Possibility that
Uranus's moon Miranda Located in the far reaches
of our solar system mate, but wouldn't it be
orbiting Uranus? Yeah, but that's in the far
reaches of the solar system I thought it just
was alluding that the moon might be anywhere
in the solar system may harbor a hidden sea beneath
its icy crust, making it hospitable to extraterrestrial
life. Discovering water on Moon is a task. It's
even harder when that moon is hundreds of millions
of miles away. The John Hawkins Applied Physics
Laboratory is the person who gave us a peek into
these icy depths. Quote, to find evidence of
an ocean inside a small object like Miranda is
incredibly surprising, said Nordheim, who co
-authored the study. His team's work challenges
our understanding of Miranda while positing new
questions about the potential for life on other
celestial bodies. Recall 1986 when Voyager 2,
NASA's intrepid spacecraft, beamed back the first
close -up images of Miranda. It was a sight to
behold. I actually don't. So I should actually
take a look at that right now. Voyager 2. I assume
that's the photo I'm looking at on the Wikipedia
page. What Wikipedia page? The Miranda bracket
moon Wikipedia page. I want to see what it looks
like. I want to see what I'm talking about. Apparently
it's pretty tiny. That's a nice looking moon.
Yeah, it looked like a classic moon. It looks
remarkably moon -like, yes. A bizarre landscape
that looked as if it had been stitched together
from bits and pieces of different worlds, from
deep grooves and towering cliffs to mysterious
trapezoid -shaped regions known as crony. Oh
yeah, then aliens have been there for sure. Yeah,
for sure, but they've been to all of them probably.
Mostly. Miranda appeared to be a geological wonder,
but what could have caused a varied landscape?
My guess would be the fact that it's so close
to Uranus that its gravity is pulling on it.
Just a guess though. I'm not an astronomer or
a scientist in any way. I'm sure there's multiple
things that could have happened to it. Uranus
is one of the lesser known planets in our solar
system. It is not true. It is so well known.
No it is. It says that right on Earth .com. It
is probably one of the more famous planets. Unlike
the other planets, Uranus rotates on its side
so its axis is almost parallel to its orbit.
This tilt causes some extreme seasons. Imagine
a planet where each pole gets 42 years of continuous
sunlight followed by 42 years of darkness. Scientists
think a massive collision with an Earth -sized
object might have knocked it over early in its
history. We don't know. Yeah. This is Earth .com.
We probably do, but we don't know personally.
I feel like it's just like stupid at this point.
Another interesting aspect is Uranus's atmosphere,
which is rich in icy materials like water ammonia
and methane. That methane is what gives the planet
its signature blue -green color. When is it gonna
get to the light the ocean like on its... Moon.
Uranus also has a set of faint rings and at least
27 moons, many named after Shakespearean characters
like Miranda, which is the subject of this article,
and Ariel. Anyhow, back to everything about Uranus.
Yeah. Despite being discovered way back in 1781
by William Herschel, Uranus still holds many
secrets and researchers are eager to explore
it further to understand more about these distant
icy worlds. Caleb Strom, graduate student at
the University of North Dakota, and Alex Pathoff,
from the Planetary Science Institution in Arizona,
joined Nordheim for this fascinating study. They
approached this mystery like detectives working
a cold case, revisiting old Voyager 2 images,
and using modern computer modeling techniques
to reconstruct Miranda's geologic past. As Strom
and his team mapped out Miranda's convoluted
surface features and modeled different scenarios
for its interior structure, a startling picture
became to emerge. Their findings suggested that
around 100 to 500 million years ago, Miranda
likely harbored a subsurface ocean at least 62
miles deep beneath a frost crust no more than
19 miles thick. Quote, that result was a big
surprise to them, end quote said Strom. The thought
that a moon as small as Miranda could contain
such a large ocean is not something scientists
expected. Even more confusing is the fact that
this ocean could have been warm enough to remain
liquid, The credit goes to a dance of gravitational
forces played out between Miranda and her neighboring
moon's orbiting Uranus. This phenomenon, known
as orbital resonance, can generate friction and
heat within a moon's interior enough to sustain
a subsurface ocean. The case isn't closed yet.
The team believes that Miranda's interior hasn't
entirely frozen over. If it had, we would see
specific surface features that just aren't there.
So there's a good chance that Miranda still has
a subsurface ocean, though likely thinner than
before. But the suggestion of an ocean inside
one of the most distant moons in the solar system
is remarkable," remarked Strom. Sorry, didn't
announce it. This isn't the first time a small
moon has surprised us back in 2004. Enceladus?
Enceladus. Enceladus. Oh, I like that name. I
wish I would have heard that couple years ago.
NC is a pretty good nickname. Oh, that is a strong
name. One of Saturn's moons revealed active geysers
spewing water vapor and ice into space, hinting
at a hidden ocean. Today Enceladus is a prime
target in the search for extraterrestrial life.
Anyhow, it goes on and on and I've had enough
reading of this because I think you get the gist
and I think I get the gist. I find it a little
curious that part of the reason it seems to be
that they're saying it could have had an ocean
in their for life is that they don't have good
information. Did that not come off to you that
you're like, we don't know enough, so maybe,
I don't know. It's definitely a guess. And at
earth .com they're not doing good to science.
They're just saying keep it vague. They're just
trying to say like this could have been a possibility
But I guess they don't really know for sure just
based on How they put the models together for
how the surface looks it could potentially be
an ocean. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know, it's too
blurry to tell. Maybe. The photos aren't that
good. And we're not going back. Let's face it.
that's so far exactly and so with that i feel
like we're making this wednesday a good one it's
actually weirdly a shame that we don't know much
about this but like we have very detailed photos
of pluto because we sent a satellite there but
you can't think about planets in their order
away from the sun as being like oh yeah because
neptune and uranus come right before pluto sure
it probably flies by there no they can be so
far away I was just gonna say they could be on
the other side of the universe. On the opposite
sides of the solar system. That's so true, though.
You really got to time it for, like, when all
the planets are aligning and then you can just
drive by all of them. No, that wouldn't work,
would it? No. And that is, in fact, what they
did with Voyager. It was a once in a, like, 150
year event where all the planets lined up for
gravity pulls to get it as far as it did and
to see so many planets. Yeah, that they pushed
it as fast as they could to get Voyager there
for that particular time. And that's when I'm
pretty sure we'll never get it again. Why can't
we just start sending up like a million satellites
though for each one? No, those have to stay in
our orbit for reasons. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough.
I won't ask questions. And with that, you got
48 hours. Don't ponder those satellites. They
need to be there. Don't. I know I'm not. Good.
Bye. Bye.