Solar SystemSIMULATION

Can Violent Space Crashes Destroy Potential Alien Oceans?

By Space.Fan Editorial DeskSeptember 19, 2026 at 11:00 AM UTC

New simulations show that even massive collisions might not stop icy moons from hiding liquid water oceans beneath their surfaces.

Image · Phys.org

The Drop

Many s orbiting s like Saturn and Neptune have thick shells of ice with liquid water trapped underneath. These hidden oceans are key places for scientists to look for signs of life. However, space is a dangerous place. These s are often hit by space rocks, which can cause them to break apart and then reform later as new, smaller s. This leads to an important question: do these big crashes destroy the water inside, or can the s keep their oceans after being broken apart? To find out, researchers created complex computer programs to simulate these crashes. They modeled how millions of pieces of rock and ice fly apart and clump back together during a collision. They then combined this with another program that tracks how heat flows inside a over billions of years. This let the team see if a could keep an ocean warm enough to stay liquid long after a violent impact. Surprisingly, the study shows that big crashes do not really decide if a has an ocean or not. The researchers discovered that if a had an ocean before a major collision, it was very likely to have one afterward. If it was a cold, frozen rock before the crash, it stayed that way. The main takeaway is that these icy worlds are tougher than we previously thought when it comes to keeping their water supply safe.

Why It Matters

This research is exciting because it gives us more hope that icy s can remain good homes for life for a very long time. By showing that big crashes do not necessarily ruin a 's internal ocean, scientists can feel more confident that these environments are stable throughout the history of our solar system. It helps us narrow down which s are the best targets for future space missions.

The Catch

While these computer models are very advanced, they are still simulations. A computer cannot perfectly recreate every single detail of a real collision in space. The study also found that the size of the matters; for smaller s, a crash can change the way the is layered on the inside. This could make it harder for those smaller worlds to trap heat, even if the ocean itself is not totally destroyed.

Put That in Perspective

Scientists have long wondered if the outer solar system is too chaotic for life to survive. By using two different types of simulations together, researchers were able to look at the 'afterlife' of a moon across 4.5 billion years. This helps experts understand why some moons are still active today while others have gone cold.

Source September 19, 2026

Marc Neveu

University of Maryland, Southwest Research Institute, Weizmann Institute of Science·Nature Astronomy

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