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New Moon System Around Uranus
An anonymous reader writes "Astronomers have discovered two of the smallest moons yet found around Uranus. The new moons, uncovered by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, are about 8 to 10 miles across (12 to 16 km) -- about the size of San Francisco. The two moons are so faint they eluded detection by the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which discovered 10 small satellites when it flew by the gas giant planet in 1986. The newly detected moons are orbiting even closer to the planet than the five major Uranian satellites, which are several hundred miles wide. The two new satellites are the first inner moons of Uranus discovered from an Earth-based telescope in more than 50 years. "It's a testament to how much our Earth-based instruments have improved in 20 plus years that we can now see such faint objects 1.7 billion miles (2.8 billion km) away," says Mark Showalter, a senior research associate at Stanford University. 'The inner swarm of 13 satellites is unlike any other system of planetary moons,' says co-investigator Jack Lissauer. 'The larger moons must be gravitationally perturbing the smaller moons. The region is so crowded that these moons could be gravitationally unstable. So, we are trying to understand how the moons can coexist with each other.'"
"Moon System Around Uranus"? Why even bother thinking of something funny? :/
After VW-Beetles, Libraries of Congress we have
now the unit of "San Francisco" to describe huge
masses. So how many Kilo-VW-Beetles is one
San Francisco?
johnboy
New Moon System Around Uranus
I saw that headline on slashdot and immediately thought to myself, "this is definately one of those times to read the article and NOT the comments".
----
Squirrel
This article is a trap. it's not an article about planets, it's the yearly Slashdot teenagers counter : they post an article with "Uranus" in it, wait a bit, then count the number of people who made witty rectal comments.
Seriously though, is it not possible to read an article about Uranus without seeing all those "uranus *lol* *giggle* *pffft!*" posts ?
*sigh*
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Perhaps people finally just launched hilary rosen into space?
It's not a moon system, these are Haemorroids.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I downloaded the "incredibly easy, conceptually simple" description in the PDF file.
Now I remember why I switched to computer science. *sigh*
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Yes, there's nothing funny about Uranus. let's forget the childish humor and take a serious, scholarly look at Uranus. To many people it's just a giant cloud of gas where the sun doesn't shine, but those of us who are enthusiastic about Uranus know that it has many secrets.
Surprising as it may seem, we don't have all that many photographs of Uranus. Yes, the Pioneers sent back pictures of Uranus, lots of them. But there are very few images that are high enough resolution and quality to show the faint rings around Uranus. Perhaps the excitement around these new moons will give us the excuse we need to take another long, hard look at Uranus.
Even if you have no idea how to find Uranus, you can still appreciate its unusual configuration. Scientists still don't understand why Uranus is tilted sideways. Also, while we know what's near the surface, we still aren't sure of the exact chemical mixture deep inside Uranus. Are the moons stable, or are they spiraling into Uranus?
With so much to learn, we must hope that NASA will probe the depths of Uranus soon. Yes, there are many technical issues that will need to be resolved, and problems to be faced--but we put men on the moon, and I'm sure that given sufficient motivation, NASA's engineers can lick Uranus too.
Oh, and yes, the size comparisons are silly, but can you think of a more sensible unit of size than San Francisco for an object in the vicinity of Uranus?
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Yeah, those damn rocket scientists have no idea what they're doing.
...and rename it to Urektum to stop all those stupid jokes. Oh, wait...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
.. if they had just found a way to use the word Klingon in it.
"Derp de derp."