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.

Museum Trip

On October 26, my class and I went to the Museum of Natural History. When we were there we went to the Hall of Meteorites, the Rose Center and saw Journey to the Stars. In the Hall of Meteorites, we walked around and had to find what a meteor and a meteorite were. We had to find what was different between them. In the Rose Center we went to go see the Big Bang. The Big Bang was a movie about how the universe started. After that we walked down the Cosmic Pathway, and went to see Journey to the Stars. Journey to the Stars was about what stars are, the sun and then sun today. We were told that eventually the sun will stop providing us heat, but when it does, humans will be long gone.

I learned that 4 billion years ago land was first formed on earth. Meteorites collide on earth, they leave craters of many sizes which provide us hot earth was formed. Chrondules are spheres found in meteorites. They tell us the formation of our vast solar system.

I want to know why astronomers cared about finding new planets and moons. Why they wanted to find out how they universe started. 

Miranda: A Big Mystery

Miranda was discovered by Gerard Kuiper Feburay 16, 1948. Gerard Kuiper named it after a character in William Shakespeare’s plays. It was discovered in telescopic photographs of the Uranian system.

Sources: http://www.solarviews.com/eng/miranda.htm

http://www.britannica.com/facts/5/12666/Gerard-Peter-Kuiper-as-discussed-in-Miranda-astronomy