* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Country music legend rushed to hospital year after heart surgery. Here’s what we know – PennLive.com

    Country Music Legend Rushed to Hospital One Year After Heart Surgery – What’s Happening Now?

    Strictly Come Dancing results: Chris Robshaw is eliminated while drag queen La Voix escapes dance-off – Yahoo

    Strictly Come Dancing results: Chris Robshaw is eliminated while drag queen La Voix escapes dance-off – Yahoo

    Placer County town of Loomis considers entertainment zone for downtown – CBS News

    Loomis Unveils Thrilling New Entertainment Zone to Revitalize Downtown

    CT Culture Corner: Robert Redford films to watch – CT Insider

    CT Culture Corner: Robert Redford films to watch – CT Insider

    Elmira’s New Entertainment Venue ‘Centertown Social’ Adding its Final Touches – WENY News

    Elmira’s New Entertainment Venue ‘Centertown Social’ Adding its Final Touches – WENY News

    Bella Thorne Shows Off Her Toned Abs in Crop Top – Yahoo

    Bella Thorne Shows Off Her Toned Abs in a Chic Crop Top

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    3 E Network Technology Group Limited Closes $1.5 Million Convertible Promissory Note Offering – Quiver Quantitative

    3 E Network Technology Group Limited Closes $1.5 Million Convertible Promissory Note Offering – Quiver Quantitative

    3 Technology Stocks to Buy Now – Yahoo Finance

    3 Must-Buy Tech Stocks You Can’t Afford to Miss Right Now

    ‘New frontier’: Austin leaders start discussions on air taxi technology – KXAN Austin

    Austin Leaders Ignite Exciting Conversations on the Future of Air Taxi Technology

    How a Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway – blog.google

    How a Gemma Model Revealed a Breakthrough Pathway for Cancer Treatment

    Italian Technology in Manufacturing: Supporting North American Industries and Keeping Production Local – Thomasnet

    How Italian Technology is Revolutionizing North American Manufacturing and Boosting Local Production

    Guide to Proteomics Project Planning: Sample Preparation Strategies – Technology Networks

    Guide to Proteomics Project Planning: Sample Preparation Strategies – Technology Networks

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Country music legend rushed to hospital year after heart surgery. Here’s what we know – PennLive.com

    Country Music Legend Rushed to Hospital One Year After Heart Surgery – What’s Happening Now?

    Strictly Come Dancing results: Chris Robshaw is eliminated while drag queen La Voix escapes dance-off – Yahoo

    Strictly Come Dancing results: Chris Robshaw is eliminated while drag queen La Voix escapes dance-off – Yahoo

    Placer County town of Loomis considers entertainment zone for downtown – CBS News

    Loomis Unveils Thrilling New Entertainment Zone to Revitalize Downtown

    CT Culture Corner: Robert Redford films to watch – CT Insider

    CT Culture Corner: Robert Redford films to watch – CT Insider

    Elmira’s New Entertainment Venue ‘Centertown Social’ Adding its Final Touches – WENY News

    Elmira’s New Entertainment Venue ‘Centertown Social’ Adding its Final Touches – WENY News

    Bella Thorne Shows Off Her Toned Abs in Crop Top – Yahoo

    Bella Thorne Shows Off Her Toned Abs in a Chic Crop Top

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    3 E Network Technology Group Limited Closes $1.5 Million Convertible Promissory Note Offering – Quiver Quantitative

    3 E Network Technology Group Limited Closes $1.5 Million Convertible Promissory Note Offering – Quiver Quantitative

    3 Technology Stocks to Buy Now – Yahoo Finance

    3 Must-Buy Tech Stocks You Can’t Afford to Miss Right Now

    ‘New frontier’: Austin leaders start discussions on air taxi technology – KXAN Austin

    Austin Leaders Ignite Exciting Conversations on the Future of Air Taxi Technology

    How a Gemma model helped discover a new potential cancer therapy pathway – blog.google

    How a Gemma Model Revealed a Breakthrough Pathway for Cancer Treatment

    Italian Technology in Manufacturing: Supporting North American Industries and Keeping Production Local – Thomasnet

    How Italian Technology is Revolutionizing North American Manufacturing and Boosting Local Production

    Guide to Proteomics Project Planning: Sample Preparation Strategies – Technology Networks

    Guide to Proteomics Project Planning: Sample Preparation Strategies – Technology Networks

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Saturn’s ‘Death Star’ moon Mimas may have gotten huge buried ocean from ringed planet’s powerful pull

April 17, 2024
in Science
Saturn’s ‘Death Star’ moon Mimas may have gotten huge buried ocean from ringed planet’s powerful pull
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

a small rocky moon with a large crater on its surface orbits a ringed planet

An illustration shows Saturn’s ‘Death Star’ Moon Mimas orbiting its parent planet.
(Image credit: Robert Lea/NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute)

Earlier this year, researchers discovered that a vast liquid ocean lurks beneath the icy shell of Saturn’s tiny moon, Mimas. Now the same team may have discovered how it was created.

New research suggests that as Mimas’ orbit around Saturn became less flattened, or less “eccentric” due to the ringed planet’s pull, its icy shell melted and thinned. This would have created a vast ocean somewhere between 2 million and 25 million years ago, making this subsurface sea relatively young for a solar system feature.

The tiny moon has already redefined what ocean worlds can be because moons this small weren’t expected to host subsurface oceans. This prior discovery and the new revelation of how this ocean may have come to be could ultimately impact our search for life elsewhere in the solar system.

Related: Saturn’s ‘Death Star’ moon Mimas may have an ocean scientists never believed could exist

“In our previous work, we found that for Mimas to be an ocean world today, it must have had a much thicker icy shell in the past. But because Mimas’ eccentricity would have been even higher in the past, the pathway to get from thick ice to thinner ice was less clear,” team leader and Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Matthew E. Walker said in a statement. 

“In this work, we showed that there is a pathway for the ice shell to be thinning currently, even as the eccentricity is dropping due to tidal heating. However, the ocean must be very young, geologically speaking.”

A tiny moon with a big ocean

Mimas is nicknamed the “Death Star” due to the Herschel crater, which gives the moon an appearance resembling the Empire’s moon-sized space station in Star Wars. This vast impact scar was created when Mimas was struck around 4.1 billion years ago. 

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Mimas has a diameter of just around 148 miles (400 kilometers), making it quite small compared to Earth’s moon’s diameter of 2,159 miles (3,475 kilometers). 

The ocean of Mimas is estimated to be located around 12 to 18 miles (20 to 30 kilometers) beneath the ice crust surface of this Saturnian moon. The outer hydrosphere of Mimas, which is composed of ice and water, is estimated to be 43 miles (70 kilometers) deep, and the ocean of the moon is estimated to be 25 miles to 28 miles deep (40 to 45 kilometers). This means the oceans seem to account for as much as half of Mimas’ volume. 

This new research has cast new light on a process that may have created these vast subsurface seas known as tidal heating. This occurs when a body like a moon is distorted or stretched due to changes in the gravitational forces it experiences in an elliptical, or oval-shaped, orbit.

“Eccentricity drives the tidal heating. Right now, it is very high compared with other active ocean moons, like neighboring Enceladus,” Walker said. “We think that tidal heating is the heat source responsible for currently thinning the shell.”

Walker added that the catch here is that tidal heating is not free energy, meaning as it melts the shell of Mimas, tidal heating pulls energy from the moon’s orbit around Saturn. Walker said this will further reduce the orbital eccentricity until Mimas’ orbit is eventually circular and the whole process is shut down for good.

(Left) An orbital eccentricity of around 0.5 representing a circulary orbit. (Right) an orbit with an eccentricity of 0.5

(Left) An orbital eccentricity of around 0 representing a circulary orbit. (Right) an orbit with an eccentricity of around 0.5 an ellipse (Image credit: Robert Lea/NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute)

Orbital eccentricity is measured in values from 0 to 1, with 0 representing a perfect circle and 1 representing a parabola. Any value between this is an ellipse. The team estimates that the onset of ice-melting must have been kickstarted when Mimas’ orbital eccentricity was around two to three times the value it has today. 

This represents the last 10 million years of the history of Mimas and presents an evolution that is consistent with the geology we see on the Saturnian moon today.

“Generally, when we think of ocean worlds, we don’t see a lot of craters because the environment is resurfaced and ends up erasing them, like Europa or the south pole of Enceladus,” Walker said. “The shape, central peak, and undisrupted interior of Herschel crater require that the shell must have been thicker in the past when Herschel formed.”

He added that to get the crater morphology observed on Mimas, the Saturnian moon’s shell must have been at least 34 miles (55 kilometers) thick when it was hit with the body that created the Herschel crater. 

“Craters can provide clues as to the presence of an ocean and the thickness of the ice shell through their morphology – such as the ratio between the crater diameter and its depth and the existence of a central peak,” Walker said.

Walker added that in order to match the current eccentricity of Mimas’ orbit and the thickness constraints based on the slight wobble, or “libration” in its rotation, they estimate think this whole ocean birthing process must have started off no more than about 25 million years ago. 

“In other words, we think Mimas was completely frozen until 10 to 25 million years ago, at which point its ice shell began melting. What changed to kick off that epoch of melting is still under investigation,” Walker concluded.  “We may be seeing Mimas at a particularly interesting time.”

The team’s research appears in the journal Planetary Science Letters.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Space.com – https://www.space.com/saturn-moon-mimas-buried-ocean-changing-orbit

Tags: deathSaturn'sscience
Previous Post

Mysterious dark matter may leave clues in ‘strings of pearls’ trailing our galaxy

Next Post

Boom’s XB-1 test plane gets FAA green light for supersonic flight

Revisiting Pope Francis’ Call for ‘Ecological Conversion’ – Sojourners

Pope Francis’ Powerful Appeal for a Global Ecological Awakening

October 21, 2025
PJSB donates $50,000 for UACCM Nursing and Science Center – KVOM

PJSB donates $50,000 for UACCM Nursing and Science Center – KVOM

October 21, 2025
An update from Riane Eisler, author of “The Chalice and the Blade,” on achieving peace. – Psychology Today

An update from Riane Eisler, author of “The Chalice and the Blade,” on achieving peace. – Psychology Today

October 21, 2025
We live in a sailboat and travel the world full-time… but our lifestyle isn’t as glamorous as you’d think – Daily Mail

Living Full-Time on a Sailboat and Traveling the World: The Reality Behind the Glamour

October 21, 2025
3 E Network Technology Group Limited Closes $1.5 Million Convertible Promissory Note Offering – Quiver Quantitative

3 E Network Technology Group Limited Closes $1.5 Million Convertible Promissory Note Offering – Quiver Quantitative

October 21, 2025
This Week in Navy Sports Presented by Navy Federal Credit Union – Naval Academy Athletics

Thrilling Moments from This Week in Navy Sports

October 21, 2025
New Land Cruiser “FJ” Makes World Premiere – トヨタ自動車株式会社 公式企業サイト

Unveiling the All-New Land Cruiser “FJ”: A Bold and Exciting World Premiere

October 20, 2025
World economy resilient but underwhelming, says IMF chief – African Business

Global Economy Proves Resilient Yet Growth Falls Short, Warns IMF Chief

October 20, 2025
Country music legend rushed to hospital year after heart surgery. Here’s what we know – PennLive.com

Country Music Legend Rushed to Hospital One Year After Heart Surgery – What’s Happening Now?

October 20, 2025
Proteases in intestinal health and disease – Nature

The Vital Role of Proteases in Intestinal Health and Disease

October 20, 2025

Categories

Archives

October 2025
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Sep    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (878)
  • Economy (899)
  • Entertainment (21,770)
  • General (17,713)
  • Health (9,940)
  • Lifestyle (912)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (900)
  • Politics (909)
  • Science (16,110)
  • Sports (21,399)
  • Technology (15,879)
  • World (882)

Recent News

Revisiting Pope Francis’ Call for ‘Ecological Conversion’ – Sojourners

Pope Francis’ Powerful Appeal for a Global Ecological Awakening

October 21, 2025
PJSB donates $50,000 for UACCM Nursing and Science Center – KVOM

PJSB donates $50,000 for UACCM Nursing and Science Center – KVOM

October 21, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version