Under the surface of Saturn's Mimas satellite may be an ocean

By the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, a group of astronomers discovered that the Mimas satellite's orbit around Saturn occurred oscillation and this suggests that underneath Mimas' rock layers can be hidden. an ocean.

Radwan Tajeddine, the leader of the research team, said: "After thoroughly examining Mimas, we found vibrations swinging around its 2-pole axis. We were really excited because this could reveal. Internal components of Mimas ".

Saturn's Mimas satellite.

The team used data from the Cassini ship to build a 3D model of the Mimas satellite orbit and found that it vibrated twice in orbit. This phenomenon can be caused by Saturn's gravity but at the same time shows two other possibilities.

First , it was possible that beneath the entire rock surface of Mimas contained a deep ocean. Mimas has a diameter of only 400km and it will not have enough mass to contain a hot core but the tide caused by Saturn's close access can provide enough heat to turn what is contained within it into liquid. Based on the 3D model, the team thinks that the ocean on Mimas could be under the rock layer from 24 to 31km, explaining the agitation.

The second possibility was that Mimas was born in an unusual way. Mimas is the smallest object in the solar system that is spherical due to gravity - that is, enough mass to form a spherical shape without being torn apart. The team thought that Mimas' core had been stretched when it formed around Saturn and was stretched out a bit. This makes Mimas's trajectory unstable.

Of course, we cannot confirm what lies beneath Mimas until humans or machines approach its surface. In the short term, the team continues to perform measurements to reinforce their hypothesis as long as Cassini is still active.

The title has been changed.