‘Saturn moon Mimas has no ocean’

This video says about itself:

23 October 2014

SciShow Space News takes you to the solar system’s own Death Star — Saturn’s moon Mimas, where something mysterious is going on. Plus, we share a stunning new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope that holds a few surprises!

Hosted by: Caitlin Hofmeister.

From Science News:

Saturn’s ‘Death Star’ moon may not conceal an ocean after all

by Thomas Sumner

2:07pm, February 28, 2017

An ocean of liquid water probably doesn’t lurk beneath the icy surface of Mimas, Saturn’s smallest major moon, new calculations suggest. Scientists had proposed the ocean in 2014 to help explain an odd wobble in the moon’s orbit.

Other ocean-harboring moons, such as Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus, are crisscrossed by fractures opened by strong tides that cause their oceans to bulge outward. Mimas, though freckled with craters, lacks any such cracks.

Planetary scientist Alyssa Rhoden of Arizona State University in Tempe and colleagues calculated whether Mimas’ icy shell could withstand the stress of a subsurface ocean pushing outward. Taking into account the moon’s elongated orbit, the researchers estimate that a subsurface ocean would produce tidal stresses larger than those on crack-riddled Europa. Mimas therefore probably doesn’t have an ocean, the researchers conclude February 24 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

In new Cassini portraits, Saturn’s moon Pan looks like pasta, by Helen Thompson, 5:30pm, March 10, 2017: here.

Satellite smashups could have given birth to Saturn’s odd moons. Weird moons orbiting the ringed planet might have been forged from head-on collisions. By Christopher Crockett, 11:00am, May 21, 2018.