Strange Moons: Miranda

Bloomin eck! It does look like a car crash! aha

How did those patterns form on Europa does anyone know?

Originally posted by ObservingYou
Bloomin eck! It does look like a car crash! aha

How did those patterns form on Europa does anyone know?

Europa is covered with ice and theorized to have a deep ocean under all that ice.

The lines are cracks in that ice basically.

They just released a movie this past June called "Europa Report". I've not had a chance to see it yet, but the trailer looks like some sort of horror / scifi flick. Here's a trailer for it:

Originally posted by Baddogma
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

Doesn't Uranus have a retrograde direction of spin, too (as well as being "on its side")? Maybe something smacked the heck outta it and Miranda some time ago?

It sure does.

Both Uranus and Venus rotate retrograde, spinning on their axis clockwise, instead of counterclockwise like the rest of the planets.

Awesome thread!
The moons of our solar system can be pretty mysterious, and until now I knew very little about Miranda.

My votes for future threads go to Enceladus and Phobos.

In May 2011 NASA scientists at an Enceladus Focus Group Conference reported that Enceladus "is emerging as the most habitable spot beyond Earth in the Solar System for life as we know it".

Wikipedia: Enceladus

reply to post by johnrobca
That was a well thought out and fascinating post. I have a passing interest in astronomy, and over the last few years I have come the thought that the moons of our solor system are more interesting and hold many more secrets than the planets they orbit.

Fun and interesting post.

S&F for an excellent presentation and for taking my mind off the usual 'crap'.

eriktheawful

S&F!!!!

I remember the images from the Voyagers blowing my mind! And it makes me sad we spend so much on war and so little on exploration of the solar system we live in...

Originally posted by SquirrelNutz
Fun and interesting post.

S&F for an excellent presentation and for taking my mind off the usual 'crap'.

You get a star from me just for having the profile picture you have!

Thank you for a fantastic read

reply to post by eriktheawful


Fabulous thread! While i find space and astronomy fascinating, my own reading and studies usually take me in different directions so i always really appreciate seeing excellently put together and thought provoking threads such as this. Heck, i learn plenty just reading your posts in other's threads - cheers to you

What is so unbelievable about Miranda other than looking like a badly shaped ball of clay? Frozen nitrogen, frozen methane in this icy world, etc. Miranda was the one that had the black spots like car oil spill on the road?

reply to post by eriktheawful

Miranda, along with many other moons and some planets, looks like Electrical Scaring to me.
Scars of Miranda; Thuderbolts
Elecrical Scarring; Electric Universe

Of course the electric universe theory is scoffed at by most astronomers. However a new field of science that is not easily scoffed at is Plasma Cosmology.
Some names to look for are Dr. Donald Scott, electrical engineer- video linked below, or Dr. Anthony Peratt, plasma physicist.

One could also look at work done by Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén and Kristian Olaf Birkeland. Evidence is showing that space is not elecrically neutral.

Originally posted by Baddogma
reply to post by eriktheawful

 

Doesn't Uranus have a retrograde direction of spin, too (as well as being "on its side")? Maybe something smacked the heck outta it and Miranda some time ago?

I seem to remember there being question on the degree of axial tilt of Uranus which would determine if it is indeed retrograde or not, > or < 90°. However current estimate puts Uranus’ tilt at 97.77° which means that it is retrograde. The interesting thing is that the moons of Uranus orbit the planet's equator not the orbital plane.

An object that is spinning prograde can be made retrograde by tilting it over 90°.

Originally posted by eriktheawful

Originally posted by geobro
great post i got into the planets about the same time as you but it is saturns moon ? lapetus that does it for me if that is not the death star i don't know what is

Lapetus is on my list of Strange Moons. So I'll be doing a thread about it.

It's Iapetus, with an "i". Just so you know once you start the thread.

reply to post by eriktheawful


It does look like something that has been mined when you first look at it, but there are hills that the markings simply ride over, rather than having the 'dug into' look. Interesting nevertheless.

In the issue of National Geographic that covered Voyagers epic flight, the general scientific consensus at the time, and still is, is that Miranda was struck by a massive meteorite 100's of millions of years ago. The impact almost completely obliterated the moon as it was instantly turned into a gigantic mess of liquid and solid rock. Because of the enormous heating and liquifying of the rock, many pieces of the surface were simply left floating on top of the moons liquid bed, similar to how our continents drift on a similar liquid bed here on earth. Such 'floating' and moving of these giant pieces of the moon left these amazing looking geologic features.

It is neat though to think that maybe some ancient civilization created such features, however in this situation I think I'll go with the more plausible explanation.

I'm proud to say that I still have that issue along with many other great issues dating back to 1948; my crawlspace is packed with boxes full of them.

Damn, that makes Antarctica look warm!

Can someone please explain to me why most planets spin one way on their axis and how the rest spin another?... and are there definitive answers (explained scientifically with facts) for this or are they all just speculations?

i enjoyed the read as well...I just figured everything rotated the same way...

Well, I guess we will really know when the privatized space firms decide to stake an interest in Space mining.
Miranda is too far, but closer we have our moon and off course mars moon.
The asteroid belt seems a little bold, then again this whole venture is bold to say the least.
Your right though, some of these moons are straight I'm going to need a 12pk to tackle this one.
The real wealth would be sending a probe their and checking it out for ourselves.
I've always imagine small outpost throughout our solar system with 2 to 3 man crews, who are capable of living in small confined spaces for years, its going to be a lifetime job, but hey! as long as you keep sending me food and the latest videogames, movies and "RealDoll", Ill be a happy camper reporting in daily on the strange activities of the far away places in our solar system.

reply to post by TheKopy

Can someone please explain to me why most planets spin one way on their axis and how the rest spin another?... and are there definitive answers (explained scientifically with facts) for this or are they all just speculations?

This is a good question and one I have given considerable thought to.

All planets, including our Sun, and most moons orbit and rotate in a counter-clockwise direction (prograde) as viewed from above the north pole with the exception of two that have a retrograde rotation or clockwise axial spin.

The two exceptions are Venus and Uranus' axial spin. One could say that both of these planets are rotating in a prograde motion yet are tilted beyond 90° (97.77° for Uranus and 177.36° for Venus). The funny thing is that if we are to call these rotations retrograde then their axial tilts are actually wrong.

For example if Uranus’ north pole is tilted to its claimed position of 97.77° then this planet is rotating prograde but if we want to call this rotation retrograde then the tilt would actually be 82.23° (97.77-180=82.23), it's inverted.

Think of Venus spinning on its axis very slowly. Using the right hand rule we can find the north pole, remember Venus does not have a magnetic field so no magnetic north pole, and this pole is spinning counter-clockwise yet it is tilted by 177.36°, nearly upside down. Now if we were to consider that Venus is in a retrograde motion (clockwise) then we would be looking at its south pole which is actually tilted by 2.64°. I hope that makes sense.

The reason as to why these planets spin on their axes and orbit in a counter-clockwise rotation, as I understand it, has to do with conservation of angular momentum. In the creation of our solar system a gas cloud that made up our Sun and planets was rotating in one direction and this angular motion was conserved as the Sun and planets were formed. I believe this is the traditional theory yet it does not explain the formation of an accretion disk or why everything was spinning in only one direction in the first place. There must be some mechanism that causes this collective motion yet any explanation, as far as I know, is pure speculation at this point.

I would like to add that I don't know of any good explanations as to why Venus and Uranus are tilted so much, or why their axial spins are backwards. I think the accepted belief is that they did not naturally form this way so there must be some mechanism that got them spinning in the wrong direction or tilted their axes to such an extreme degree. Perhaps Venus and Uranus are connected to an event that caused them to be tilted.