Uranian Moons May Have Subsurface Oceans

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Back in 1986, Voyager 2 visited the mysterious planet Uranus. Probes send back a prairie-schooner-full of data and some of it is analyzed and reanalyzed decades later. It is more than just, "Oh, look. More moons." Rechecking data from V'ger provided interesting results.

Before going on, it is worth noting that Uranus defies the conventional cosmic evolution story. It is colder than Neptune, has an extreme axial tilt where it effectively rolls around the sun, rotates like Venus in a retrograde manner, has an offset magnetic field, and more.

Reanalyzing Voyager 2 data from Uranus, researchers believe that two of its moons contain water. This fits with biblical creation science models.
Illustration of Uranus and its five largest moons, NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / Mike Yakovlev (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents)
To date, twenty-nine moons have been discovered. Several of those are odd like their ringed host (rings discovered in 1977). Two of them are strong candidates to have oceans under their surfaces. This was determined by stress fractures caused by the planet they orbit. If correct, they could join the ranks of other moons in the solar system that may have liquid or frozen water inside.
A team of researchers led by University of North Dakota planetary scientist Dr. Caleb Strom concluded that the two Uranian moons Ariel and Miranda . . .  once had water oceans within their interiors. They obtained their conclusions . . . by studying cracks, or stress fractures, on the surfaces of the two moons and by using computer models to determine the internal conditions needed to produce those cracks.

These stress fractures are caused by gravitational tugs exerted on Ariel and Miranda by Uranus and, to a lesser extent, by the other Uranian moons. These tugs slowly deform these Uranian moons, making their shapes at times a little more like that of an American football than a sphere. These tugs can also warm the interiors of small moons like Ariel and Miranda. These tugs are stronger when the orbits of Ariel and Miranda have higher eccentricities, that is, when their orbits around Uranus are more stretched-out or elongated.

To read the full article and see also why these findings fit in nicely with biblical creation science presuppositions and defy secular presuppositions, blast off to "Subsurface Oceans on Two Uranian Moons?" You may also like to read "Pondering Many Moons."