Large impacts on icy moons prevent oceans from forming, study finds

An international team from NASA, SwRI and the Weizmann Institute used computer models to study how large impacts affect subsurface oceans on icy moons of Saturn and Uranus. They found that collisions do not create new ocean worlds, but instead shrink existing oceans and shorten their lifespan, since sinking rock prevents water from accumulating and the ocean freezes over.

• Models show large impacts do not form new subsurface oceans
• Rock sinking after ice melts blocks ocean growth, causing it to freeze
• Study covered Saturn's Enceladus, Titan and Dione and Uranus's five major moons
• Findings published in Nature Astronomy