Miranda
Explanation:
Miranda is a bizarre world which surely had
a tempestuous past.
The innermost of the larger
Uranian moons, Miranda is almost 300 miles
in diameter and was
discovered
only 50 years ago (February 16, 1948) by the
renown American planetary astronomer Gerard Kuiper.
Examined very closely by
the Voyager 2 spacecraft in 1986, this
dark and distant
world turned out to be quite a surprise.
Miranda was found to display a unique, bewildering
variety of terrain
leading some to suggest that it has been
fractured up to 5 times during its evolution.
Along with the famous "chevron" feature, the bright V-shaped area just
above center,
this composite of the highest resolution images of Miranda shows
wild juxtapositions of ridges and valleys, older cratered and younger smooth
surfaces, and shadowy canyons perhaps 12 miles deep.
The large crater (below center) is the 15 mile wide crater
Alonso.
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.
