Ziya Pokhrel

Grade: 11

School: Budhanilkantha School

City: Budhanilkantha, Kathmandu

Topic: Oberon

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The universe holds numerous deep and mystic secrets, still waiting to be explored: some of which people may have acknowledged while many are still unknown.

Among those unknown secrets lies Uranus's second-largest and outermost major moon Oberon. Likely, formed from the accretion disk that surrounded Uranus just after the planet's formation, Oberon consists of approximately equal amounts of ice and rock, possibly differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle. The surface of Oberon, which is dark and slightly red, appears to have been primarily shaped by asteroid and comet impacts as is covered by numerous impact craters reaching 210 km in diameter. Although Oberon is worthy of a detailed study, it was studied close only once: the spacecraft Voyager 2, which took several images of Oberon, in 1986.

However, only 40% of the moon's surface is mapped, while the other 60% remains a mystery for humanity.

While everything seems exciting and intriguing about Oberon, It should be explored further mainly for two reasons;

a) We have collected very little information on Oberon compared to other major Uranus moons.

b) The information we have managed to lay our hands on is also not 100% authentic.

Oberon is almost saturated with craters, meaning that a new impact is likely to erase older impacts. So, it is the right time to send another satellite to explore further, before it loses its history.

And when we return to Oberon, we can look forward to the answers to the faults and rifts that suggest some geological activity in the past.

Answers, to large craters and the mysterious substance that lies on the surface with some theories suggesting it to be dirty water, upwelled from beneath the surface on impact.