Hidden ocean found in Saturn’s smallest moon by Chinese and European scientists
- Discovery will motivate examination of similar-sized icy moons throughout the solar system, according to planetary experts
- Mimas has a surface area about the size of Spain and is similar in appearance to the Death Star in the popular film franchise
In a paper published on Thursday by the journal Nature, the team said the global ocean ebbs and flows about 20km (12 miles) beneath the heavily cratered and geologically inactive icy shell of Mimas, which has a surface area about the size of Spain.
Lead author Valery Lainey from the Paris Observatory in France said the likelihood of Mimas – which is roughly 400km (249 miles) in diameter – hosting an internal ocean seemed “extremely low”.
“One would never expect to see so much water inside it – more than 50 per cent of Mimas’ volume is taken by liquid water,” he said.
The paper’s co-authors include researchers from Jinan University in Guangzhou, southern China, Queen Mary University of London, and the University of Nantes and the University of Franche-Comté in France.
