The solar system still holds many surprises. Much of the universe has many mysteries, and this is much true of our solar system most especially. There are still new things to be discovered within it, and astronomers find something new with each mission. Uranus is one of the planets that still have much to reveal, such as how many moons it still has waiting to be seen.
A study being made by the University of Idaho says that Uranus might still have two small undiscovered moons, according to Phys Org. This is based on images that Voyager 2 made when it passed by the planet in 1986. Rob Chancia, a doctoral student at the University of Idaho, noted that wavelength patterns on Uranus' rings keep changing.
"When you look at this pattern in different places around the ring, the wavelength is different. That points to something changing as you go around the ring. There's something breaking the symmetry," said Matt Hedman, Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Idaho. He helped Chancia in investigating the anomaly.
Before this, both of them have also studied Saturn's rings using data that came from the Cassini space mission, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory site says. With their study of Saturn's rings, they have knowledge on how planetary rings behave.
By studying radio occultations and stellar occultations, they discovered that Uranus' rings are being disrupted by the same pattern of moonlet wakes found on Saturn's rings. Through this study they have estimated that the undiscovered moons to have four to 14 kilometers in diameter. The moons would be smaller than any of the known moons of Uranus.
"We haven't seen the moons yet, but the idea is the size of the moons needed to make these features is quite small, and they could have easily been missed," Hedman added. This could also explain why Uranus' rings are much narrower compared to Saturn's rings. The small moons could be affecting the rings by keeping them from spreading out too much.
Hedman and Chancia said that others would be needed to confirm whether the undiscovered moons do exist. They will continue to study Uranus' rings though to know more about it.
Another NASA mission still continue to have impact, as the Viking Mars mission is said to have discovered life.
