Miranda (moon)

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Miranda

Assembled mosaic of Miranda using imagery from Voyager 2, January 1986. Large coronae scar Miranda's varied surface, with the bright angular corona at center being Inverness Corona
Discovery
Discovered by	Gerard P. Kuiper
Discovery date	February 16, 1948
Designations
Designation	Uranus V
Pronunciation	/məˈrændə/[1]
Adjectives	Mirandan,[2] Mirandian[3]
Orbital characteristics
Semi-major axis	129390 km
Eccentricity	0.0013
Orbital period (sidereal)	1.413479 d
Average orbital speed	6.66 km/s (calculated)
Inclination	4.232° (to Uranus's equator)
Satellite of	Uranus
Physical characteristics
Dimensions	480 km × 468.4 km × 465.8 km
Mean radius	235.8±0.7 km (0.03697 Earths)[4]
Surface area	698100 km2
Volume	54830000 km3
Mass	(6.293±0.300)×1019 kg[6]
Mean density	1.148 g/cm3 (calculated)
Surface gravity	0.076 m/s2
Escape velocity	0.189 km/s
Synodic rotation period	synchronous
Axial tilt	0°
Albedo	0.32
Surface temp. min mean max solstice[7] ? ≈ 60 K 84±1 K
Apparent magnitude	16.6[8]

Miranda, also designated Uranus V, is the smallest and innermost of Uranus's five round satellites. It was discovered by Gerard Kuiper on 16 February 1948 at McDonald Observatory in Texas, and named after Miranda from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest.^[9] Like the other large moons of Uranus, Miranda orbits close to its planet's equatorial plane. Because Uranus orbits the Sun on its side, Miranda's orbit is nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic and shares Uranus's extreme seasonal cycle.

At just 470 km in diameter, Miranda is one of the smallest closely observed objects in the Solar System that might be in hydrostatic equilibrium (spherical under its own gravity), and happens to have a surface area roughly similar to Texas. The only close-up images of Miranda are from the Voyager 2 probe, which made observations of Miranda during its Uranus flyby in January 1986. During the flyby, Miranda's southern hemisphere pointed towards the Sun, so only that part was studied.

Miranda probably formed from an accretion disc that surrounded the planet shortly after its formation and, like other large moons, it is likely differentiated, with an inner core of rock surrounded by a mantle of ice. Miranda has one of the most extreme and varied topographies of any object in the Solar System, including Verona Rupes, a roughly 20-kilometer-high scarp that may be the highest cliff in the Solar System,^[10][11] and chevron-shaped tectonic features called coronae. The origin and evolution of this varied geology, the most of any Uranian satellite, are still not fully understood, and multiple hypotheses exist regarding Miranda's evolution.