Researchers have discovered that Mimas, one of Saturn’s smallest moons, has an ocean of liquid water flowing beneath its entire surface. What really creates the waves is how young the body of water is; It is only 5 to 15 million years old.

Mimas’ subsurface ocean was discovered after analyzing data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Cassini was launched in October 1997 to study Saturn, including its rings and its impressive collection of 146 moons. It remained in the Saturn system for 13 years and returned a series of impressive images and valuable scientific data. In 2017, it completed its mission in spectacular fashion, diving into Saturn’s atmosphere and turning into a screaming fireball.

Using some Cassini data, astronomers Nick Cooper of Queen Mary University of London, Valerie Laney of the PSL Observatory in Paris, and their colleagues have not only discovered the secret of the world’s oceans beneath Mimas’ cratered surface, but also that it is only 5-15 million years old. This makes it a relative newcomer to our solar system from a cosmic perspective.

They came to this conclusion based on an orbital anomaly found in Cassini data, and say the ocean’s young age is due to the fact that it has not yet hit the moon’s icy surface.

“Mimas is a small satellite with a diameter of only 400 kilometers” [249 миль]Its cratered surface gives no clue to the hidden ocean beneath, Cooper said. “This discovery adds Mimas to an exclusive club of moons with interior oceans, including Enceladus and Europa, but with the unique difference that its ocean is extremely young, estimated to be only 5 to 15 million years old.”

The team says that the relative youth of the Mimas ocean makes the Moon an excellent candidate for further studies to uncover information about the origins of life in our solar system.

“The presence of a recently formed liquid water ocean makes Mimas a prime candidate for origins of life researchers,” Cooper added.

While there are no immediate plans to return to the Saturn system, NASA says it will use lessons learned from the Cassini mission to help develop strategy for the Europa Clipper mission, which will launch later this year. During this mission, the spacecraft will make 49 orbits around Jupiter’s moon Europa to test the possible habitability of its sub-ice ocean. The discovery of the Mimas Ocean was detailed in an article published in the journal Nature.