'The suggestion of an ocean inside one of the most distant moons in the solar system is remarkable,' a researcher said.
An unsuspecting moon lurking in our solar system has a secret ocean of water that might even harbor extraterrestrial life, scientists have suggested.The tiny world Miranda, one of the moons of the ice giant Uranus, may have a liquid water ocean underneath its surface, according to a paper in The Planetary Science Journal.This places Miranda among the few bodies in our solar system that could have a form of life thriving in its water depths.
'That result was a big surprise to the team,' co-author Caleb Strom, a graduate student at the University of North Dakota, said in the statement.This ocean was likely created because of tidal forces between Miranda and the other moons of Uranus, which can be strengthened if the moons orbit around a planet at particular rates. These gravitational tugs heat the inside of a moon, melting ice into liquid water.
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