Mimas, Saturn's moon, might feature a stunning ocean. This little satellite does not like any of the other sea worlds we've observed. Still, observations from NASA's Cassini mission suggested it may hold water beneath its ice surface. Estimates of its internal heat have now verified this.
Planetary experts said (via New Scientist) that Mimas, unlike most of the other moons thought to have seas, has no fracture or traces of melting on its surface.
IN SPACE - NOVEMBER 19: In this handout image provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the planet Saturn's "Death Star" moon Mimas is shown from a distance of approximately 28,000 miles (45,000 kilometers), taken by NASA's spacecraft Cassini-Huygens in its closest approach to the pock-marked moon on January 30, 2017. The lighting, reflected from Saturn, has been enhanced by NASA. Cassini is nearing the end of its nearly 20-year mission.
Saturn Moon Mimas Might Be Hiding an Ocean
The Saturn system has many seas, notably Enceladus, Titan, and potentially Dione. It used to include Mimas. A study titled "The Implications of Tides on the Mimas Ocean Hypothesis" implies that we should stop that notion.
According to the said study, Mimas, one of Saturn's teeny-tiny moons, may contain an ocean or merely a football-shaped core. It was all due to strange anomalies in Mima's orbit around Saturn. It appeared to wobble in its interactions, which is normally a sign that an ocean is sloshing about within.
Cincinnati said Mimas has an uncanny resemblance to the Death Star from "Star Wars." It's a planet suffering from a massive crater covering about half of the moon's surface. The moon's surface was shattered by an impact, and it was barely holding together.
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Even then, there was some skepticism. While both Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa exhibit surface fractures and geyser activity, Mimas' surface seemed rather inactive, with a massive crater that gave it the look of a Star Wars Death Star. Astronomy said this internal ocean world would also require a heat source 24-32 kilometers (15-20 miles) below the surface.
Alyssa Rose Rhoden of Arizona State University spearheaded the ocean study. By comparing Mimas' surface cracks and crevices to Europa and Enceladus' surface cracks and crevices, she and her coauthors proposed what an ocean on Mimas would need to look like to explain its wobble. Instead of the tranquil surface observed now, they discovered that any water would have generated huge fissures across the surface, comparable to those seen on Europa. It appears that the football-shaped core is once again the prevailing model.
Presence of Ocean in Saturn Moon Mimas Does Not Imply Existence of Life
Surprisingly, most scientists previously believed Enceladus, Saturn's slightly bigger moon, would be much too tiny to hold liquid water beneath its ice. According to Smithsonian Magazine, Mimas may now represent a new lower limit for such an ocean due to these findings. If this is right, ice-covered oceans may be ubiquitous in the Solar System's farthest reaches, and maybe across the cosmos. In fact, they may be even more frequent than the Earth's "bare" ocean. Of course, the presence of an ocean does not necessarily imply the existence of life. Still, it may indicate livable circumstances and a niche inhabited if life could survive there.
This might be especially true in the Solar System's outer reaches, which are rich in organic molecules and liquids and gases that can be used by life. However, there appears to be no interchange with the surface in the instance of Mimas. On Enceladus, on the other hand, geysers near the South Pole dump new ice on the surface. Mimas' water is most likely "fossilized" water that has been trapped in the moon's interior for a long period.
It would be fascinating to send a spacecraft to investigate the makeup of the Mimas ocean. Could water have been trapped for billions of years inside the moon? What kind of organic content would it have? At the very least, we know where to get to the water: Herschel crater's lowest altitudes. All experts need now is a supermassive drill rig.
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