Chinese and European scientists find hidden ocean in Saturn’s smallest moon

Researchers from Europe and China have found an ocean in one of the unlikeliest places in the solar system – hidden beneath the icy shell of Saturn’s smallest, innermost moon.

In a paper published on Thursday by the journal Nature, the team said the global ocean ebbs and flows about 20km (12 miles) beneath the heavily cratered and geologically inactive icy shell of Mimas, which has a surface area about the size of Spain.