Scientists have detected signs of water on one of Uranus’s moons, revealing that this frozen world might be far more active than anyone expected. New data from telescopes show chemical fingerprints that hint at salty liquid water rising from below the surface, a clue that the moon could hide a subsurface ocean. If that’s true, it places Uranus’s moons alongside Europa and Enceladus as surprising contenders in the search for life within our own solar system. Researchers think tidal forces — the same stretching and squeezing that heats other ocean worlds — might be keeping this moon warm enough for liquid water to exist. And in this video, you’ll explore what this discovery means for future missions and why scientists now believe Uranus may be hiding multiple ocean worlds in plain sight. Animation is created by Bright Side. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
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00:00Beneath the frozen surface of Uranus's moon, Ariel, something massive may be hiding an ocean more than 100 miles deep.
00:09That's 40 times deeper than the Pacific Ocean.
00:12And it's been sealed up under ice for billions of years, waiting to be discovered.
00:18So Uranus is this pale blue gas giant way out there, the loner planet that never gets much attention.
00:25But recently, scientists turned their telescopes and computer models toward one of Uranus's 29 known moons, Ariel.
00:33Compared to its sisters and brothers, Ariel's got quite a unique personality.
00:39When the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by in 1986, it caught some photos showing an oddly smooth surface peppered with craters, fractures, and valleys.
00:50Those details might not sound exciting until you realize what they mean.
00:54This moon was geologically active, moving, cracking, and reshaping itself like Earth does.
01:02That's rare in the outer solar system, where most moons are just frozen popsicles, quietly spinning around their planet.
01:09When scientists studied those fractures, technically called grabins, they found something strange.
01:16The pattern of these cracks looks exactly like what happens when there's pressure building underneath the surface, like a balloon stretching before it pops.
01:26It's as if something deep inside Ariel was pushing outward, warping, and breaking the crust.
01:32The most logical culprit would be a subsurface ocean, which was once warm enough to push against the icy layers above it.
01:39An ocean sealed under miles of ice, hidden for billions of years.
01:46So, how would something so far from the Sun even have liquid water?
01:51Well, Ariel's orbit isn't perfectly circular, but slightly oval, which scientists call eccentric.
01:58That means, as it circles Uranus, the gravitational pull changes a little each time.
02:05The constant tugging stretches and flexes the moon's interior, creates friction, and voila, generates heat.
02:13Combine that with natural radioactive decay inside the rocky core, and suddenly, you've got enough warmth to melt ice deep below the surface.
02:22So, Ariel might have been making its own geothermal spa out there in the middle of nowhere.
02:29Scientists modeled its interior structure, and found that the stress the tidal forces were causing could have kept liquid water stable for millions, maybe even billions of years.
02:40Even cooler, or warmer in this case, is that traces of that ocean may still exist.
02:46Ariel's icy shell shows features that look recent, geologically speaking.
02:52That means the moon hasn't been completely frozen for all eternity.
02:57Beneath those fractures, there could still be small pockets or thin layers of liquid water.
03:03And this brings up the most exciting part.
03:07Water means potential life.
03:09Every time scientists find signs of liquid water somewhere in the solar system, they start whispering that question we all secretly love.
03:18Could something live there?
03:20Sure, Ariel's no tropical resort.
03:22But remember, on Earth, we've found microbes thriving near hydrothermal vents at the bottom of our oceans, living off chemicals, not sunlight.
03:31If Ariel once had similar vents pumping heat and minerals into its ocean, it could have easily hosted its own microscopic residence.
03:42And if there was an ocean there once, it could still have salt in its interior.
03:47Scientists believe salts and ammonia could act like antifreeze, keeping the water liquid longer.
03:53So even though the surface temperatures dropped to minus 351 degrees Fahrenheit, the inside could stay cozy enough for water to remain unfrozen.
04:05Now, before you start packing for Uranus, let's remember this is a moon orbiting a gas giant that's about 1.8 billion miles away from us.
04:15Visiting it isn't as simple as booking a plane ticket.
04:18Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft that's ever gotten even close, and that was almost 40 years ago.
04:25We have better photos of Mars' sand dunes than we do of most Uranian moons.
04:30So, for now, scientists rely on clever modeling, telescope data, and a lot of patience.
04:37Still, this discovery is big.
04:39For decades, we've looked at moons like Jupiter's Europa or Saturn's Enceladus as the best representatives of the ocean world category.
04:49They're icy, they have subsurface oceans, and scientists have actually detected water plumes jetting into space from them.
04:57But now, Ariel joins the club.
05:00If we ever send another mission to Uranus, Ariel would be a prime target for exploration.
05:05Now, another destination worth checking out is Saturn's moon, Mimus.
05:11Scientists have always thought it was just a frozen rock ball.
05:15But it might be hiding a whole ocean underneath its surface, and a future spacecraft could find it.
05:22Researchers have been mapping how thick the moon's icy crust is.
05:26And those maps help them figure out how old this ocean could be and where the ice is thinnest.
05:32That's the jackpot spot for future missions to check for liquid water.
05:37Mimus doesn't look like a typical ocean world.
05:40When you look at Europa or Enceladus, you can literally see the cracks and crevices in their icy shells.
05:47Mimus looks smooth and quiet, almost like a cue ball in space.
05:52The craters look permanent, carved in rock rather than ice.
05:56Nothing about it screams ocean world.
05:58But a few years ago, data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft started telling us otherwise.
06:05Cassini, the probe that gave us our best tour of Saturn and its moons,
06:10kept sending back info that didn't quite make sense unless Mimus had liquid water under all that ice.
06:17The more Cassini's data rolled in, the more it looked like there might be a newborn ocean
06:23hiding under 12 to 19 miles of solid ice.
06:27Scientists used models, originally made for Europa, to figure out how heat moves through Mimus's icy shell.
06:34They wanted to know how thick it was, how much heat it could trap, and whether it could melt ice below.
06:41And they found that once melting starts on Mimus, it doesn't stop.
06:47It accelerates, and really quickly.
06:49All that melting ties back to Mimus's orbit.
06:52The moon doesn't orbit Saturn in a perfect circle.
06:55Its path gets a little stretched.
06:58That oval shape means the moon gets pulled and squeezed by Saturn's gravity as it orbits.
07:04The same way the moon's gravity gives us tides here on Earth, Saturn's gravity tugs on Mimus.
07:10But instead of water tides, it's flexing solid ice.
07:14And that flexing creates heat.
07:16So, at some point, something kicked Mimus into a slightly weirder orbit.
07:22Maybe a collision or a gravitational nudge from another moon.
07:26The inside of Mimus heated up, melted some of its ice, and created an ocean under the surface.
07:33But then, gravity slowly started to pull Mimus's orbit back into a circle again.
07:38When it does that, the heating will stop, and eventually, the ocean will freeze all over again.
07:45So, basically, Mimus is in its warm, ocean-having phase right now.
07:51Computer models show that the orbital change probably happened just 10 to 15 million years ago.
07:57That's nothing in space-time.
07:59It also turned out that the heat on Mimus doesn't move in a simple straight line.
08:04It kind of loops and twists, depending on how thick the ice is.
08:08Which means finding this ocean won't be easy.
08:12But it's not impossible.
08:14Studying possible ocean worlds, and the ones of which we already know for sure,
08:19like Europa and Cetalus, Titan, and Callisto, is crucially important for us down here on Earth.
08:25Every time humans find liquid water somewhere new,
08:29we're basically discovering another version of the one thing that made us possible.
08:35Earth's oceans gave birth to everything alive, including us humans.
08:40When scientists learn how Europa's or Cetalus's oceans stay liquid without sunlight,
08:46they learn something about Earth's deep-sea vents, about heat and balance.
08:50When they model Titan's chemistry, they're basically looking at what Earth might have been like before life began.
08:58So maybe life isn't that rare.
09:01And one day, a probe will dip into the icy ocean of Europa with NASA's Europa Clipper,
09:07or scoop up water from Cetalus's geysers and find something.
09:12Even a single living cell.
09:14And when that happens, it'll rewrite everything we think we know about life.
09:19It'll also remind us we're not the center of the story,
09:23but just one chapter in a universe full of water.
09:27That's it for today.
09:28So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:33Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
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