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Ariel


Ariel is the twelfth of Uranus's satellites. It appears to be quite similar to Titania, though Titania is 35% larger. All of Uranus' large moons are a mixture of about 40-50% water ice with the rest rock, a somewhat larger fraction of rock than Saturn's large moons such as Rhea.

Ariel's surface is a mixture of cratered terrain and systems of interconnected valleys hundreds of kilometers long and more than 10 km deep. This is similar to, but much larger and more extensive than the situation on Titania. Some of the craters appear to be half-submerged. The canyon floors appear as though they have been smoothed by a fluid. The fluid could not have been water because water acts like steel at these temperatures. The flow marks might have been made by ammonia, methane or even carbon monoxide. Ariel's surface is clearly relatively young (though older than some such as Enceladus); obviously some sort of resurfacing processes have been at work. Some ridges in the middle of the valleys are interpreted as upwellings of ice.

Ariel may have been hot inside long ago, but it's cold now. Perhaps the valleys are cracks which formed when Ariel froze.


Orbital Distance:   190,590 km - 191,890 km (average 191,240 km)
Eccentricity:       0.034
Local Year:         2.520 days (2d 12h 29m 21s)
Orbital Velocity:   5.519 km/s
Inclination:        0.31°
Local Day:          2.520 days (2d 12h 29m 21s)
Axial Tilt:         n/a

Diameter:           1,162 km
Composition:        H2O ice and rock
Density:            1.64 g/cm3
Mass:               1.35 x 1018 tonnes (0.0002 earths)
Gravity:            0.027 G
Escape Velocity:    0.557 km/s
Area:               4.2 million km2
Surface Material:   H2O ice and rock
Atmosphere:         None
Pressure:           None
Albedo:             0.34
Temperature:        ???°C

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