An ocean has been discovered on Saturn’s Mimas satellite

Astronomers from the Paris Observatory have discovered that Saturn’s satellite Mimas has an ocean of liquid water. The discovery is described in a paper published in the journal Nature.

Mimas is a satellite only about 400 kilometres in diameter and its surface, abundantly covered with craters, does not indicate the presence of a hidden ocean. Usually, the sign of the existence of long-term global oceans is surface modification due to internal dynamics. Therefore, the presence of vast quantities of liquid water on Mimas was considered unlikely.