Alex McColgan

This young age of the ocean is crucial, in fact, it explains everything.

The ocean is so new that the heat hasn't had time to radiate through the thick ancient crust.

Essentially, the moon is melting from the inside out, and features that formed long before the ocean formed, like the Herschel crater, haven't yet been impacted.

This discovery resolves the Mimas paradox.

Mimas isn't dead, it's just late to the party.

You might even say it's an Enceladus in waiting.

Given enough time, the ocean will continue to eat away at the ice shell.

In a few million years, the stresses will become too great, the crust will crack, and Mimas might begin to spray its own geysers into the Saturnian skies.

Now, the realisation that Mimas has a young ocean leads to all sorts of fascinating possibilities, but there is one gaping question.

Where did it come from?

It turns out that the most likely culprit is actually its orbital instability.

At some point in the recent past, perhaps just 10 million years ago, MIMOS likely entered a chaotic resonance with another moon, possibly Tethys or Dione.

This interaction would have pumped up MIMOS' orbital eccentricity, stretching its orbit into an even more extreme oval.

As MIMOS swung closer to and further from Saturn,

The immense tides were now powerful enough that they began to flex the moon's solid interior.

The friction generated heat, enough heat to melt the ice and create a global sea.

And then there's the even bigger question I just know you've all been waiting to ask me.

Could this be another potential place beyond Earth to look for life?

Sadly, this ocean is likely to be a fleeting phenomenon.

The very act of sloshing water around inside the moon dissipates energy.