Uranus' Moon Miranda
Explanation:
NASA's robot spacecraft Voyager 2 passed the planet
Uranus and its moons in
1986. While the cloud tops of
Uranus proved to be rather featureless, the surface of
Miranda, the
innermost of
Uranus' large moons, showed several interesting features.
Voyager 2 passed closer to
Miranda than to any
Solar System body and hence
photographed it with the clearest resolution. Miranda's heavily cratered
terrain shows grooves like
Jupiter's moon
Ganymede and
several valleys and cliffs. Miranda is made of a roughly equal mix of ice
and rock. Miranda was discovered by Gerard Kuiper in 1948.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
