Miranda Formation

    First a supernova explosion occurs, hot gas and dust from around the supernova and swirl around in space. As the nebula cools atoms move slower and clump together. Accretion begins, ssmall objects in space collide, making large bodies in space. Miranda was hit by a comet or asteroid. Taken over by Uranus's gravational pull, Miranda now orbits Uranus and is considered a moon.

More about Miranda

Voyager 2 was the spacecraft the discovered Miranda. Voyager 2 was forced to fly close to Uranus in order to get the boost it needed to go on to Neptune and due to the orientation of the whole system at almost right angles to the ecliptic only Miranda was approached closely. Before Voyager, of course, little was known about Miranda and as it is not the largest or in any other way remarkable, it probably would not have been chosen as the prime target at Uranus. Voyager's good luck held up, however, as Miranda turned out to be by far the most interesting. It was initially thought that Miranda had been completely shattered and reassembled several times in its history, each time burying some parts of the original surface and exposing some of the interior. Now, however, a more mundane explanation involving the upwelling of partially melted ices seems to be in favor.

This is the spacecraft, Voyager 2

Planet?

    Today we were told why Pluto is no longer a planet. For Pluto to be a planet, it has to, 1. orbit a star. 2. have enough gravitational pull to control objects in its neighborhood meaning that it has a clear orbit, 3. it has to be spherical. Pluto orbits the sun, which is a star. so maybe it is a planet. Pluto has enough gravitational pull to be in a spherical shape. But Pluto does not have a "clear neighborhood" of it's orbit. So it is not a planet.
     My body, Miranda a moon of Uranus, is not a planet. My body doesn't orbit a star, or have a gravitational pull that it is spherical.

INTRESTING FACT: Gerald Kuiper who discovered Miranda. The Kuiper Belt was named after him.

Miranda V.S. Sun

The diameter of Miranda is 470km. The sun is 1.4 million km. Miranda can fit into the sun 470,000,000 times.