Comparison of Satellites - Essay Example

College: Comparison of the Four Outer Planet Satellites: Io, Titan, Miranda, and Triton General Characteristics Io is one of the satellites of the planet Jupiter. It is the most interior of the four Galilean moons that orbit around the giant gas planet. Its radius spans 1,821.3 (km). The distance of Io’s orbit from Jupiter’s center is 421,700km (262,000 (mi), and 350,000 (km) (217,000 mi) from the planet’s cloud tops. A single orbit around Jupiter lasts Io only 42.5 hours. Io has high volcanic activity, and its volcanic lava flows and plumes paint its surface various shades of yellow, white, red, green, and black due to compounds and allotropes of sulfur.

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon. It has a radius of 2,576±2 (km). Titan takes 15 days and 22 hours to orbit Saturn once. It takes the satellite the same amount of time to complete a single rotation. Titan has a characteristic orange hue as seen from space due to its dense organonitrogen atmosphere (Jugen, 135 – 147). Miranda is one of Uranus’s five major moons, the innermost and the smallest. It has a mean radius of 235.8±0.7 km. It takes Miranda 1 day and 9 hours to orbit around Uranus.

Miranda’s surface is grayish in color. Triton is Neptune’s largest moon and has a radius of approximately 1353 km. It has a retrograde orbit; therefore, the direction of the orbit is opposite to Triton’s rotation. It takes the satellite 5 days and 19 hours to complete a single orbit around Neptune. Triton’s surface color is a mixture of gray, pink, and black (Vogt, 17 – 20).Surface CharacteristicsIo’s surface is covered with smooth, expansive plains dotted with tall mountains, many of them active volcanoes.

There are also volcanic lava flows and numerous pits. The surface temperature ranges from 90K to 130K. Io’s surface also contains products of extensive volcanism, which include silicates, sulfur dioxide, and sulfur, which give it a colorful appearance. Titan’s surface has a diverse geology, characterized by both smooth and rough areas. There are streaky features hundreds of kilometers in length, and slight elevations that seem to have a volcanic origin. The surface temperature is approximately 93.7K. Titan’s surface mostly comprises sand and rock made up of silicate compounds.

Patchwork regions of rugged terrain, cover Miranda’s surface. Massive canyons also criss-cross the surface. The surface composition of Miranda is not clear, but astronomers believe it is mostly water ice. The surface temperature varies between 60K and 84K. Triton’s surface is relatively flat but contains block outcrops, troughs, ridges, hollows, icy plains, plateaus, and a few craters. The surface is mostly made up of frozen nitrogen, and the temperature is 38K (Bond, 243 – 298).Internal StructureIo’s interior consists of an outer layer of crust and mantle which is rich in silicon, and an inner layer rich in iron or iron sulfide comprising the core.

The core has a radius of between 350 and 650km, whereas the magma and the crust are approximately 500 km and 12 km thick respectively. Titan’s interior comprises several layers including a 3400km rocky center surrounded by 4-5 layers of different crystalline ice forms. Astronomers know little about Miranda’s interior structure, but they believe that it consists of a crust and mantle made up of ice and silicate compounds and a crust composed of metal and rock. Triton’s interior comprises of a crust, mantle, and core just like the Earth.

The crust is mainly water ice, the mantle water, and the core consists of rock and metal (Jugen, 137 – 143).AtmosphereIo’s atmosphere is extremely thin and consists mainly of sulfur dioxide, and small quantities of sulfur monoxide, atomic sulfur and oxygen, and sodium chloride. Atmospheric temperature and density vary considerably with time of day, volcanic activity, latitude, and surface frost abundance. Titan is the only natural satellite in the solar system with a dense, nitrogen-rich atmosphere, apart from the Earth.

Titan is a ‘super rotator’ because its atmosphere rotates at a higher speed than its surface. Surface pressure at Titan is 1.45 times that of the Earth. The dense atmosphere blocks the sun’s visible light from reaching the surface. The atmosphere comprises 98.4% nitrogen and 1.6% methane. Miranda, on the other hand, lacks an atmosphere. Nitrogen almost entirely makes up Triton’s atmosphere. However, there are trace amounts of carbon monoxide and methane near the surface. A troposphere rising to an altitude of 8km exists at the surface due to turbulence.

There is no stratosphere, but a thermosphere spans from an altitude of 8km to 950km, followed by an exosphere (Bond, 256 – 292).Works CitedBlunck, Jugen. Solar System Moons: Discovery and Mythology. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2010.Bond, Peter. Exploring the Solar System. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2012.Vogt, Gregory. Moons. Mankato: Capstone Press, 2003.