Scientist for a Day

Anvi Chauhan

School: eduVelocity Global

Topic: Miranda

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"The gigantic canyons along with the ridges and valleys and so many amazing possibilities makes Miranda the moon of my choice. Being the closest to both Earth and Sun amongst others is another reason for my bias towards it.

The thing about its uneven surfaces is that we cannot accurately predict what is on the other side of this moon. Some people have suggested that we may find another corona on the other side but what can we say? I find Miranda to be adorably abnormal with a charm of its own. It is beautifully imperfect.

​It makes us wonder… Why is its surface so unique? I would like to know for sure if it had once collided an come back together or if the coronae are sites of large rocky or metallic meteorite strikes which partially melted the icy subsurface and resulted in episodic periods of slushy water rising to Miranda's surface and refreezing.The prospect of find water is so enthralling isn’t it? Miranda reflects about a third of the sunlight that strikes it. This suggests that that it surfaces have been darkened by carbonaceous material. It also has a porous surface.

Now we cannot change the laws of science. We have only limited options: either discover a new law, prove the previous ones wrong or pertain with the existing laws to invent something new. This leads me to the point that although I cannot expect the existing life to live on faraway moons, which they might not be able to survive in, I can definitely hope for a new form of life to inhabit these places, a form of life, engineered especially for such purposes with the help of biotechnology.

Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions—such as exposure to extreme temperatures and extreme pressures. Tardigrades have even survived exposure to outer space. We could send Tardigrades along with psychrophiles to Miranda for experiments. We could modify genes with the help of biotechnology...

What if the genes of Tardigrade were put into other organisms? Wouldn’t it be worth it? There is so much for us to do.

Apart from this we could discover many other things… Small discoveries could lead to something big in the future. What is the chemical composition of this moon? Would we find something different on the other side? Why is its inclination so different? Is it possible that the inclination will change again in the future? Is it possible to establish space stations on other moons? Can we have factories on moons? Can we extract resources from moons that are limited on Earth?

With the growing population there is a high need for us to look for other places that can sustain life and to also look for species that can inhabit places which are generally termed as inhabitable. This time I have all my hopes on Miranda and the people working to achieve this."