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An ocean may be hidden deep under a thick crust of ice on Titan, one of Saturn's moons, it has been reported in the journal Nature.
The predictions have been reinforced by radar images from the Cassini-Huygens mission, a cooperative project of the US space agency (Nasa), the European Space Agency (Esa) and the Italian Space Agency (Asi).
If confirmed, it would mean that Titan has two of the key components for life - water and organic molecules.
When Cassini began to observe the largest of Saturn's moons in 2004, the surface was thought to be completely covered with an ocean of hydrocarbons.
But when the spacecraft turned its radar on the moon for the first time in 2004, and the Huygens probe parachuted to the surface a year later, much of the surface was found to be solid, with geological features such as dunes, channels and impact craters, punctuated by vast "lakes".
Cassini's latest fly-by of Titan, coupled with models of how the moon spins, the data suggests that the observed seasonal variation in spin rate could only exist if a liquid ocean lay beneath the solid crust.
(c) NewsRoom 2008
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