Astronomers have discovered evidence of a subsurface ocean under the icy abyss of Saturn’s mini moon, Mimas, which resembles the Star Wars Death Star.
After using observations from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and studying changes in Mimas‘s orbit, the French team shared on Wednesday that a secret ocean 12 to 18 miles beneath the frozen surface was more likely to be there than an assumed rocky core.
This Feb. 13, 2010, image provided by NASA shows Saturn’s moon Mimas and its large Herschel Crater, captured by the Cassini spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP)
The study was published in the journal Nature.
The only substances to have ever been detected on Mimas are water and ice. With its 123-mile radius, Mimas is Saturn’s smallest and innermost moon, and due
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