YOGYAKARATA, KOMPAS.TV – One of Saturn’s satellites, Mimas or nicknamed the “Death Star”, is thought to have an underground ocean. Scientists say there is “interesting evidence” that the satellite is hiding the ocean beneath the surface.
This finding was known after NASA’s space shuttle, Cassini, caught a strange wobble in the satellite’s rotation.
In an article released in the journal Icarus On January 19, 2022, scientists estimated the wobble came from a liquid ocean trapped beneath the icy surface of the 396-kilometer-diameter satellite.
If these allegations can be confirmed, then Mimas is said to be a completely new type of world.
“If Mimas has oceans, it represents a new class of ‘hidden’ oceanic worlds with surfaces that don’t betray the existence of oceans,” said Alyssa Rhoden, a US geophysicist. Live Science.
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The findings on the satellites of Saturn’s ring planet are also important for human knowledge about the possibility of life in outer space.
Mimas can prove that water, and perhaps the life it supports, may be more abundant in outer space than humans have previously thought.
The concept of oceanic planets as in Saturn’s other satellite, Enceladus or Jupiter’s satellite, Europa, is not new.
However, internal tidal processes tend to allow the oceans to leak to the surface and they show other signs of geological activity.
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