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Uranus’s Swaying Moons will help Spacecraft Seek Out Hidden Oceans

Ariel, Uranus’s fourth largest moon, is thought to be made of equal parts rock and ice. A new computer model developed at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics could be used to detect liquid water oceans beneath Ariel’s icy surface. Credit: NASA

A new computer model can be used to detect and measure interior oceans on the ice covered moons of Uranus. The model works by analyzing orbital wobbles that would be visible from a passing spacecraft. The research gives engineers and scientists a slide-rule to help them design NASA’s upcoming Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission.

When NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it captured grainy photographs of large ice-covered moons...

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