Prisha Jain

Prisha Jain

Grade: 8

City: Durgapura, Jaipur

Topic: Oberon


The January of 1986 was a stepping-stone for mankind’s exploits into space and beyond. In that blessed month, the mighty spacecraft- Voyager 2 reached the Uranus system and passed 3 moons during its flyby of Uranus. That was a brief visit though, and I personally feel we should choose Oberon to study further.

Although all of Uranus’ satellites are objects of enigma, there are 3 main reasons as to why Oberon should be our primary choice to return to.

Oberon

To begin with, Oberon’s surface is the most heavily cratered of all the Uranian moons and has little geographical proof of internal activity, which would indicate that Oberon has the most ancient and preserved surface among them. This fact renders Oberon quite interesting as it represents the starting point from which other bodies may have evolved from, and it can be further researched to see a glimpse of the universe in its early millenniums.

Secondly, according to most reliable sources, Oberon has some unidentified dark substance covering the surface of most of its craters. According to me, the most probable theory is that this is a carbon -rich material. The craters are spectrally flat, with visual geometric albedos ranging from 0.2 to 0.4, which is consistent with the composition of water ice (or methane-water ice) mixed with a dark component such as a carbonaceous chondritic material. If this is carbon rich material, in the best case, it could significantly help humans progress along the Kardashev scale. However, since the amount present is most probably limited, it is only safe to hope that this material could help mankind to some extent.

Due to these factors, along with the fact that only 25 percent of its surface could be geographically mapped during the flyby, I feel that we must re-visit Oberon.

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