PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA25500: Major Moons of Uranus
 Target Name:  Uranus
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Voyager
 Spacecraft:  Voyager 1
Voyager 2
 Product Size:  1215 x 588 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Primary Data Set:  Voyager EDRs
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA25500.tif (651 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA25500.jpg (68.15 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

New modeling shows that there likely is an ocean layer in four of Uranus' major moons: Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. Salty – or briny – oceans lie under the ice and atop layers of water-rich rock and dry rock. Miranda is too small to retain enough heat for an ocean layer. The modeling, detailed in a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, was informed by a re-analysis of data from NASA's Voyager spacecraft.

Scientists have long thought that Titania, given its size, would be most likely to retain internal heat, caused by radioactive decay. The other moons had been widely considered too small to retain the heat necessary to keep an internal ocean from freezing, especially as heating created by the gravitational pull of Uranus is only a minor source of heat.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2023-05-04