{"id":15222,"date":"2024-02-08T00:47:17","date_gmt":"2024-02-08T00:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/08\/one-of-saturns-smallest-moons-has-a-secret-ocean\/"},"modified":"2024-02-08T00:47:17","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T00:47:17","slug":"one-of-saturns-smallest-moons-has-a-secret-ocean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/08\/one-of-saturns-smallest-moons-has-a-secret-ocean\/","title":{"rendered":"One of Saturn\u2019s smallest moons has a secret ocean"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Astronomers have uncovered additional evidence that one of Saturn\u2019s smallest moons, Mimas, is hiding a global ocean beneath its icy surface. Building a stronger case for the presence of water \u2014 essential to life as we know it \u2014 could help scientists gain a better understanding of where to search for habitable worlds in the vast expanse of deep space. <\/p>\n

Scientists previously thought Mimas was just a big chunk of ice before NASA\u2019s Cassini mission studied Saturn and some of its 146 moons by orbiting the ringed planet between 2004 and 2017. <\/p>\n

Discovered in 1789 by English astronomer William Herschel as a tiny dot near Saturn, Mimas was first imaged from space by the Voyager probes in 1980. Craters cover the surface of Mimas, but the largest one is 80 miles (about 130 kilometers) across and causes the moon to resemble the Death Star from the \u201cStar Wars\u201d films. <\/p>\n

Data collected during Cassini <\/strong>flybys of Mimas intrigued astronomers. The moon takes a little more than 22 hours to orbit Saturn and is only about 115,000 miles (186,000 kilometers) from the planet. The Cassini data showed that Mimas\u2019 rotation and orbital motion experienced changes triggered by the moon\u2019s interior. <\/p>\n

A team of European researchers determined in 2014 that either a rigid, elongated and rocky core or a subsurface ocean caused the moon\u2019s rotation and motion. <\/p>\n

To follow up on the previous study, Observatoire de Paris astronomer Dr. Val\u00e9ry Lainey and his colleagues analyzed the orbital motion data to see which scenario was most likely. The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Nature. <\/p>\n

The team determined that the moon\u2019s spin and orbital motion didn\u2019t match up with the Cassini observations if Mimas had a pancake-shaped rocky core. Instead, the evolution of Mimas\u2019 orbit over time suggested an internal ocean has shaped its motion, Lainey said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis discovery adds Mimas to an exclusive club of moons with internal oceans, including Enceladus and Europa, but with a unique difference: its ocean is remarkably young, estimated to be only 5 (million) to 15 million years old,\u201d said study coauthor Dr. Nick Cooper, honorary research fellow in the astronomy unit of the School of Physical and Chemical Sciences at Queen Mary University of London, in a statement. <\/p>\n

Old surface, young ocean<\/h3>\n

The research team determined the origin and age of Mimas\u2019 ocean by studying how the moon, roughly 249 miles (400 kilometers) in diameter, responded to the gravitational forces that Saturn exerted on it. <\/p>\n

\u201cInternal heating must come from the tides raised by Saturn on Mimas,\u201d Lainey said. \u201cThese tidal effects have induced friction inside the satellite, providing heat.\u201d <\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n

<\/span> Saturn\u2019s moon Titan has disappearing \u2018magic islands\u2019 that may be clumps of organic material<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The team suspects the ocean is about 12.4 miles to 18.6 miles (20 kilometers to 30 kilometers) deep beneath the moon\u2019s ice shell. With the ocean so young, astronomically speaking, there wouldn\u2019t be any outward signs of activity on the surface to imply the presence of a subsurface ocean.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

The craters across Mimas act like telltale wrinkles, suggesting it has an old surface. But Saturn\u2019s Enceladus appears younger because active geysers have contributed to resurfacing, or depositing of new, fresh material on that moon\u2019s surface. <\/p>\n

The ocean is still evolving, so Mimas may offer a unique window into the processes behind how subsurface oceans have formed on other icy moons, the researchers said. <\/p>\n

A closer look at ocean worlds<\/h3>\n

The discovery could change the way astronomers think about moons across our solar system. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Mimas hides a global ocean, this means that liquid water could lie almost anywhere,\u201d Lainey said. \u201cWe already have serious candidates for global oceans (on moons such as) Callisto, Dione and Triton.\u201d <\/p>\n

In 2017, NASA announced that ocean worlds may be the most likely places of finding life beyond Earth, and missions such as the European Space Agency\u2019s Juice and NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper and Dragonfly spacecraft will investigate the potential habitability of Jupiter\u2019s moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and Saturn\u2019s moon Titan. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe existence of a recently formed liquid water ocean makes Mimas a prime candidate for study, for researchers investigating the origin of life,\u201d Cooper said. <\/p>\n

It may be time to observe other seemingly quiet moons across the solar system that could be hiding conditions that can support life, the study authors said.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\u201cLainey and colleagues\u2019 findings will motivate a thorough examination of mid-sized icy moons throughout the Solar System,\u201d wrote Drs. Matija \u0106uk and Alyssa Rose Rhoden in an article that accompanied the study. \u0106uk is a research scientist at the SETI Institute in California, and Rhoden is a principal scientist at the Southwest Research Institute\u2019s Planetary Science Directorate in Colorado. <\/p>\n

Neither author was involved in the study, but Rhoden has authored research about the potential for a \u201cstealth\u201d ocean on Mimas. <\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n

<\/span> Life may have everything it needs to exist on Saturn\u2019s moon Enceladus<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cBasically, the difference between our 2022 paper and this new paper is that we found an ocean could not be ruled out by Mimas\u2019 geology, whereas they are actually detecting the signature of the ocean within Mimas\u2019 orbit,\u201d Rhoden said. \u201cIt is the strongest evidence we have, so far, that Mimas really does have an ocean today.\u201d <\/p>\n

Since the 2022 report, Rhoden and her research group have continued their study of Mimas, and they agree with the new study\u2019s conclusion about the relatively young age of the moon\u2019s ocean. <\/p>\n

\u201cMimas certainly demonstrates that moons with old surfaces can be hiding young oceans, which is pretty exciting,\u201d Rhoden said. \u201cI do think we can speculate as to moons having developed oceans much more recently than we often assume.\u201d <\/p>\n\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Astronomers have uncovered additional evidence that one of Saturn\u2019s smallest moons, Mimas, is hiding a global ocean beneath its icy surface. Building a stronger case for the presence of water \u2014 essential to life as we know it \u2014 could help scientists gain a better understanding of where to search for habitable worlds in the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":15223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}