It’s one of the biggest unanswered questions in science – if there’s life beyond Earth, where is it?
While you might think the answer is ‘far far away’, surprisingly, it could be much closer to home than we thought.
A new study suggests that extraterrestrials could be hiding just 1.7 billion miles from Earth – on Uranus’ moon, Miranda.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory have discovered evidence of an ocean beneath Miranda’s surface, which they say could be habitable.
‘To find evidence of an ocean inside a small object like Miranda is incredibly surprising,’ said Tom Nordheim, co-author of the study.
‘It helps build on the story that some of these moons at Uranus may be really interesting—that there may be several ocean worlds around one of the most distant planets in our solar system, which is both exciting and bizarre.’
Based on the findings, the researchers are calling for a new mission to Uranus.
‘We’re excited by the possibilities and eager to return to study Uranus and its potential ocean moons in depth,’ Mr Nordheim added.
Among the 288 moons orbiting the planets in our solar system, the scientists say that Miranda ‘stands out’.
Images snapped by NASA’s Voyager-2 spacecraft back in 1986 showed that the moon’s southern hemisphere was a ‘Frankenstein-like hodgepodge’ of grooved terrain.
The researchers compared this landscape to the squares on a quilt – and suspected it may be the result of tidal forces within the moon.
In their new study, the team reassessed these images to understand what the moon’s interior could look like.
Firstly, the team mapped the moon’s surface features, including its cracks and ridges.
Next, they developed a computer model to test several possible structures of the moon’s interior.
Their analysis revealed that the interior that produced the best match with the surface was a vast ocean under Miranda’s icy surface, some 100-500 million years ago.
This ocean was no more than 19 miles below the surface, and extended for at least 62 miles, according to the model.
Given Miranda’s radius is just 146 miles, this suggests the ocean would have filled almost half of the moon’s body.
Caleb Strom, who led the study, said: ‘That result was a big surprise to the team.’
The researchers are unsure if the ocean is still there , and say that if it is, it’s relatively thin.
‘But the suggestion of an ocean inside one of the most distant moons in the solar system is remarkable,’ Mr Strom added.
Based on the findings, the researchers are calling for a new mission to Uranus to photograph its moon once again.
‘We won’t know for sure that it even has an ocean until we go back and collect more data,’ Mr Nordheim said.
‘We’re squeezing the last bit of science we can from Voyager 2’s images.’
The only spacecraft to visit Uranus was NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1986 – and this isn’t the first time that scientists have called for a fresh mission.
Back in 2022, a report by the National Academy of Sciences urged NASA to launch a mission to Uranus.
The report called Uranus ‘one of the most intriguing bodies in the solar system’, and said studying it would improve our understanding of ice giants generally.
The group said the spacecraft should operate in the system over a number of years, orbiting the ice giant and sending a probe into its atmosphere.
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