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Uranus May Have Two Undiscovered Moons

posted by martyb on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the That's no...Romulan? dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus 30 years ago, but researchers are still making discoveries from the data it gathered then. A new study led by University of Idaho researchers suggests there could be two tiny, previously undiscovered moonlets orbiting near two of the planet's rings.

Rob Chancia, a University of Idaho doctoral student, spotted key patterns in the rings while examining decades-old images of Uranus' icy rings taken by Voyager 2 in 1986. He noticed the amount of ring material on the edge of the alpha ring—one of the brightest of Uranus' multiple rings—varied periodically. A similar, even more promising pattern occurred in the same part of the neighboring beta ring.

"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, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Idaho, who worked with Chancia to investigate the finding. Their results will be published in the Astronomical Journal and have been posted to the pre-press site arXiv.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:45PM (#418532)

    *sigh*

    Only comment that isn't a butt joke. Unless it is and I'm wooshing. Waste of a comment section.

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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:47PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday October 25 2016, @01:47PM (#418535) Journal

    If they can drop Pluto as an official planet in the solar system, then so too can they rename Uranus. It's time.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @02:33PM (#418565)

      Urectum?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @07:27PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @07:27PM (#418685)

        Down-modder clearly isn't a Futurama fan.

        • (Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:09PM

          by YeaWhatevs (5623) on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:09PM (#418711)

          Or maybe they were. They got tired of that joke and renamed it Urethrum

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @04:07AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @04:07AM (#418844)

        Urvagina.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @08:57PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @08:57PM (#419141)

          Urmom

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @05:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 25 2016, @05:59PM (#418642)

      The problem is not Uranus' name. The problem is the English language. Stop using "your" and use "thy" as God intended. Then thou will find that "Uranus" doesn't sound much like "thy anus". ;-)

      • (Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:41PM

        by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 25 2016, @09:41PM (#418726) Journal
        Even if you don't know how to use the second person singular, 'Uranus' still doesnt have a 'y' in it.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?

      • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday October 26 2016, @04:06AM

        by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @04:06AM (#418843) Homepage

        If thou were knowledgeable, thou would know that it should be "thine anus".

        --
        Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!