[…] Titan’s smushing and stretching [lags] behind Saturn’s peak gravitational pull by about 15 hours. If Titan’s icy shell was hiding a purely liquid ocean, its shape would change much more quickly.

So what does Titan’s interior look like? With this new data, scientists believe it’s much more viscous, made up of slush, ice, tunnels, and pockets of melt water surrounding its rocky core.

With no ocean, you might think scientists’ hopes of finding life on Titan were dashed. Instead, they’re more optimistic than before: “Instead of an open ocean like we have here on Earth, we’re probably looking at something more like Arctic sea ice or aquifers, which has implications for what type of life we might find, but also the availability of nutrients, energy, and so on.”