Chapter 7 The Outer Planets

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212 Chapter 7 The Outer Planets FIGURE 7-34 Miranda The patchwork appearance of Miranda in this mosaic of Voyager 2 images suggests that this satellite consists of huge chunks of rock and ice that came back together after an ancient, shattering impact by an asteroid or a neighboring Uranian moon. The curious banded features that cover much of Miranda are parallel valleys and ridges that may have formed as dense, rocky material sank toward the satellite’s core. At the very bottom of the image—where a “bite” seems to have been taken out of the satellite—is a range of enormous cliffs that jut upward as high as 20 km, twice the height of Mount Everest. (NASA) VIDEO 7.9 the Voyager mission. However, Voyager’s cameras discovered ten additional satellites, each fewer than 50 km across. Still others have since been observed from Earth. Several of these tiny, irregularly shaped moons are shepherd satellites whose gravitational pull confines the particles within the thin rings that circle Uranus. The smallest of Uranus’s five main satellites, Miranda, is the most fascinating and bizarre of its 21 known moons. Unusual wrinkled and banded features cover Miranda’s surface (Figure 7-34). Its highly varied terrain suggests that it was once seriously disturbed. Perhaps a shattering impact temporarily broke it into several pieces that then recoalesced, or perhaps severe tidal heating, as we saw on Io, moved large pieces of its surface. Miranda’s core originally consisted of dense rock, while its outer layers were mostly ice. If a powerful impact did occur, blocks of debris broken off from Miranda drifted back together through mutual gravitational attraction. Recolliding with that moon, they formed a chaotic mix of rock and ice. In this scenario, the landscape we see today on Miranda is the result of huge, dense rocks trying to settle toward the satellite’s center, forcing blocks of less dense ice upward toward the surface. NEPTUNE Neptune is physically similar to Uranus (review Figures 7-28 and 7-30). Neptune has 17.1 times the Earth’s mass, 3.88 times Earth’s diameter, and a density of 1640 kg/m 3 . Unlike Uranus, however, cloud features can readily be discerned on Neptune. Its whitish, cirruslike clouds consist of methane ice crystals. The methane absorbs red light, leaving the planet’s belts and zones with a banded, bluish appearance (Figure 7-35). Like Jupiter, the atmosphere of Neptune also experiences differential rotation. The winds on Neptune blow as fast as 2000 km/h—among the fastest in the solar system. Zones (light blue) South pole Belts (dark blue) High-altitude clouds FIGURE 7-35 Neptune’s Banded Structure. Several Hubble Space Telescope images at different wavelengths were combined to create this enhanced-color view of Neptune. The dark blue and light blue areas are the belts and zones, respectively. The dark belt running across the middle of the image lies just south of Neptune’s equator. White areas are high-altitude clouds, presumably of methane ice. The very highest clouds are shown in yellow-red, as seen at the very top of the image. The green belt near the south pole is a region where the atmosphere absorbs blue light, perhaps indicating some differences in chemical composition. (Lawrence Sromovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison and STScI/NASA) WEB LINK 7.24
213 Chapter 7 The Outer Planets 7-14 Neptune was discovered because it had to be there Neptune’s discovery is storied because it illustrates a scientific prediction leading to an expected discovery. In 1781 the British astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus. Its position was carefully plotted, and by the 1840s, it was clear that even considering the gravitational effects of all the known bodies in the solar system, Uranus was not following the path predicted by Newton’s and Kepler’s laws. Either the theories behind these laws were wrong, or there had to be another, yet-to-be-discovered body in the solar system pulling on Uranus. Independent, nearly simultaneous calculations by an English mathematician, John Adams, and a French astronomer, Urbain Leverrier, predicted the same location for the alleged planet. That planet, Neptune, was located in 1846 by the German astronomer Johann Galle, within a degree or two of where it had to be to have the observed influence on Uranus. In August 1989, nearly 150 years after its discovery, Voyager 2 arrived at Neptune to cap one of NASA’s most ambitious and successful space missions. Scientists were overjoyed at the detailed, close-up pictures and wealth of data about Neptune sent back to Earth by the spacecraft. Storm Great Dark Spot White clouds FIGURE 7-36 Neptune This view from Voyager 2 looks down on the southern hemisphere of Neptune. The Great Dark Spot, whose diameter at the time was about the same size as the Earth’s diameter, is near the center of this picture. It has since vanished. Note the white, wispy methane clouds. (NASA/JPL) VIDEO 7.10 Insight into Science Process and Progress Scientific theories make testable predictions (see Chapter 1). Based on the details of Uranus’s orbit around the Sun, Newton’s law of gravitation predicted that Uranus’s orbit was being affected by the gravitational attraction of another planet. The law also predicted where that planet was located, leading to the discovery of Neptune. At the time Voyager 2 passed it, a giant storm raged in Neptune’s atmosphere. Called the Great Dark Spot, it was about half as large as Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. The Great Dark Spot (Figure 7-36) was located at about the same latitude on Neptune and occupied a similar proportion of Neptune’s surface as the Great Red Spot does on Jupiter. Although these similarities suggested that similar mechanisms created the spots, the Hubble Space Telescope in 1994 showed that the Great Dark Spot had disappeared. Then, in April 1995, another storm developed in the opposite hemisphere. Neptune’s interior is believed to be very similar in composition and structure to that of Uranus: a rocky core surrounded by ammonia- and methane-laden water (see Figure 7-30). Neptune’s surface magnetic field is about 40 percent that of the Earth. Also, as with Uranus, Neptune’s magnetic axis, the line connecting its north and south magnetic poles, is tilted sharply from its rotation axis. In this case, the tilt is 47%. Again like Uranus, Neptune’s magnetic axis does not pass through the center of the planet (see Figure 7-31). We saw in section 7-2 that the magnetic fields of Jupiter and Saturn are believed to be generated by the motions of their liquid metallic hydrogen. However, Uranus and Neptune lack this material, and their magnetic fields have a different origin. These fields are believed to exist because molecules such as ammonia dissolved in their water layers lose electrons (become ionized). These ions, moving with the planets’ rotating, fluid interiors, create the same dynamo effect that produces the magnetic field. 7-15 Neptune has rings and has captured most of its moons Like Uranus, Neptune is surrounded by a system of thin, dark rings (Figure 7-37). It is so cold at these distances from the Sun that both planets’ ring particles retain methane ice. Scientists speculate that eons of radiation damage have converted this methane ice into darkish carbon compounds, thus accounting for the low reflectivity of the rings. Neptune has eight known moons. Seven have irregular shapes and highly elliptical orbits, which suggest that Neptune captured them. Triton, discovered in 1846, is spherical and was quickly observed to have a nearly circular, retrograde orbit around Neptune. It is difficult to imagine how a
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Chapter 7 The Outer Planets

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