Mimas: Saturn's moon houses the ocean / News

Mimas, one of the smallest planets, or you might say “rocks”, in our space may hold a secret that we previously thought: the ocean? water? To live? Mimas would be the last place in our solar system where this would be possible, at least we thought until recently.

Scientists said Wednesday that Mimas does not appear to be a “solid rock” (something long thought) and that there is a large ocean beneath the ice sheet that may contain many of the essential ingredients for “alien life.” This puts Mimas in the same category as the moons Enceladus, Titan, Europa and Ganymede where it could be possible. However, the discovery in Mimas comes as a complete surprise.

Mimas, which has a diameter of only 400 kilometers, was discovered in 1789 by the English astronomer Herschel, and the moon became widely known for the huge crater on the small planet that made Mimas resemble the space station used by Darth Vader in the Star Wars films.

For a long time it was assumed that Mimas was “rock solid”, but in 2014 this theory was disputed. Scientists at the time said Mimas' orbit showed “internal turbulence” but it was not possible to prove the presence of an ocean. For the current discovery, astronomers relied on research data from the Cassini mission, which mapped Saturn and its moons between 2004 and 2017. This showed that there were deviations in Mimas' rotation, which made it impossible for Mimas to have a solid rocky core, but this could only happen if there was a subsurface ocean. The Mimas ice sheet is said to be 20 to 30 kilometers thick.

The ocean likely formed five to fifteen million years ago (until very recently from an astronomical point of view) and could have been created by attraction and friction between Saturn's other moons. According to Nicolas Rimbaud, a scientist from the French Observatory, Mimas has all the ingredients necessary for the evolution of bacteria. Moving water, in contact with rocks, which receives “heat” by attracting surrounding moons, is essential in the possible evolution of “something.”

According to Rambo, the youth formation of Mimas and its associated development and breeding ground is currently Mimas the A place to research the evolution of strange bacteria.