Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets
The large, icy Uranian moons have the potential to host subsurface oceans under their outer icy shells, both in the past and presently. Castillo-Rogez et al. [2022] consider a wide range of geochemical and geophysical parameters to model the interior evolution of the moons Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon.
Miranda and Ariel are notable for their striking, large-scale tectonic, and in some cases likely cryovolcanic, surface features. However, the study finds that Ariel and the other moons may have retained some interior liquid while Miranda likely has not. The authors found that the state of the present-day water in the interior of these moons, and the ability of a future spacecraft to detect liquid water, depends on the true compositions and structures of their interiors. A future spacecraft may be able to probe the interior of the moons directly during flybys by searching for magnetic field signatures, or it may reveal indirect evidence of subsurface oceans by imaging the geology of each moon.
Castillo-Rogez, J., Weiss, B., Beddingfield, C., Biersteker, J., Cartwright, R., Goode, A., et al. (2023). Compositions and interior structures of the large moons of Uranus and implications for future spacecraft observations. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 128, e2022JE007432. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022JE007432
—Kelsi Singer, Associate Editor, JGR: Planets