Exploring the Moons of Uranus and Neptune: A Lecture Note, Study notes of Astronomy

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PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 1 Announcements HW5 due now 50% credit if submitted next Tuesday PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 2 PTYS/ASTR 206 – The Golden Age of Planetary Exploration Shane Byrne – shane@lpl.arizona.edu Moons of Uranus and Neptune PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 5 Voyager I & II are about to become the first interstellar spacecraft The stream of particles coming from the sun stalls at the Heliopause Voyager I is starting to feel this, voyager II will follow soon Missions will probably end in the 2020s PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 6 Voyager II flyby very different in each case Uranus – Voyager passed through the equatorial plane Got a good look at only one Moon Neptune – Voyager passed along the equatorial plane Uranus 1986 Neptune 1989 PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 7 Uranian Moons small 13 inner moons among the rings 5 ‘mid-sized’ satellites ~10 irregular, distant satellites Named after characters from works of Pope & Shakespeare Neptune has very few Moons Triton is pretty large …and the reason why other moons are scarce PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 10 Saturn’s satellites are mostly icy Radius Density Mimas 196 km 1170 kg m-3 Enceladus 250 km 1600 kg m-3 Tethys 530 km 970 kg m-3 Dione 560 km 1480 kg m-3 Rhea 764 km 1230 kg m-3 Iapetus 720 km 1034 kg m-3 PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 11 Inner solar system All Rock Jupiter’s Moons Rock and Ice Saturn’s Moons Mostly ice Uranus/Neptune’s Moons ?? Ganymede (Jupiter) Iapetus (Saturn) Titania (Uranus) PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 12 Inner solar system All Rock Jupiter’s Moons Rock and Ice Saturn’s Moons Mostly ice Uranus/Neptune’s Moons Less ice…. Ganymede (Jupiter) Iapetus (Saturn) Titania (Uranus) PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 15 The result is that satellites of Uranus (and Neptune) are Small Have a higher proportion of rocky material than at Saturn Satellites of Uranus are 50-65% rock Warmer Jupiter ~ 5AU Saturn ~10 AU Cooler Uranus ~19 AU Neptune ~30 AU C CH4 CO O H2O CO N NH3 N2 The same happens for various other elements Less important than Oxygen We don’t know if they’re differentiated Not too dissimilar from Ganymede & Callisto Except they’re small Probably no iron core PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 16 Uranus has 13 inner moons Very dark objects, albedo < 10% (like the rings themselves) Water-ice coated with organic compounds Cordelia and Ophelia shepherd the ring Mab is a source of Uranus's outermost μ ring Rings probably generated by moon- moon collisions Moons of Uranus Puck – 160km across PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 17 There are five much larger ‘regular’ satellites Encounter geometry means that only one satellite was well imaged The south-polar region of each Moon was seen 1100-1200 km 1500-1600 km 470km Good pictures from Voyager Not so good pictures from Voyager PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 20 Density not size determines amount of activity Higher density caused by having more rock More rock means more heat from radioactive elements Past tidal heating also a possibility Active Inactive Titania Ariel Oberon Umbriel Diameter 1580km 1158km 1525km 1170km Density 1700 kg m-3 1700 kg m-3 1600 kg m-3 1400 kg m-3 Albedo 0.3 0.4 0.2 0.2 PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 21 Miranda: 472km across Discovered by Kuiper, 1948 Old cratered plains – uniform Coronae Tectonic disruption of surface Infilling with very viscous magmas PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 22 Small size makes activity hard to explain Low density means little rock …and little radiogenic heat Energy must have been tidal Resonance with Umbriel might also explain Miranda’s 4º orbital inclination System may have slipped out of a resonance that Europa and Io have today Pulled the plug on Miranda’s geologic activity PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 25 That’s a bit unfair. Triton has a thin nitrogen atmosphere Triton PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 26 Perfectly circular orbit (14.33 RN) No current tidal heating Retrograde orbit Density – 2050 kg m-3 Spiraling inward Will reach the Roche limit in ~3.6 billion years Structure probably close to Ganymede Complete differentiation Ice I shell thickening downwards Ice II/III shell thickening upwards Sandwiched ocean expected PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 27 Triton has a thin nitrogen atmosphere Pressure is 19 micro-bars 1/50000th of Earth’s pressure! High reflectivity (~85%) Very cold surface 38-39 K Nitrogen freezes into ice in the winter polar regions Sublimates back into a gas in the summer polar region Very similar to CO2 on Mars Cloud PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 30 ‘Cantaloupe’ terrain Close packed elliptical features Regularly spaced Non-overlapping Rising blobs of low density ice ‘Diapirs’ PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 31 Where did Triton come from? Very different than other satellites of Uranus and Neptune Similarities to Pluto and Kuiper Belt Retrograde orbit points to it being a captured object Gravitational capture needs some dissipate energy Did Triton… Hit another moon of Neptune Hit another Kuiper Belt Object that happened to be passing by Come in as a binary system and have its twin escape Pluto and Charon Binary Kuiper Belt Objects PYTS/ASTR 206 –Moons of Uranus and Neptune 32 Triton captured into large and highly eccentric orbit Tidal forces reduce the orbital eccentricity Tides are still shrinking Tritons orbit It will pass Neptune’s Roche limit in about 3.6 billion years …which means the end of Triton Triton was severely heated by tides Melting generates liquid layer Runaway heating Whole body perhaps molten Lots of cryovolcanism Complete differentiation easy Greenhouse atmosphere Surface temps 100-200K