Saturn did not need more moons to be a photogenic planet, but I had them. The latest observations have raised the official count of Saturn’s satellites to 274: almost double that all other combined planets.
Jupiter has been left behind. In early 2023, Saturn snatched Jupiter The title of “Planet with more moons” when the discovery of 62 new Saturnian satellites for a total of 145. Astronomers have already suspected that they were still satellites faint satellites orbiting Saturn.
There were indications in the observations of the ringed planet that were made with the Canada-France-Hawaii (CFHT) telescope between 2019 and 2021. The challenge: Carefully link each point of light (the potential moons) with different shots to confirm that it was the same object with a stable orbit.
128 new moons. Throughout 2023, a team led by the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the Sinica Academy, in Taiwan, continued the work of monitoring and analysis of those signals with additional observations.
The team gathered sufficient evidence to Design 128 new moonsthat the International Astronomical Union has officially recognized this week, increasing the total of Saturnian satellites to 274.
Irregular moons. The 128 newly discovered satellites They are classified as irregular moons: Potato -shaped moons of just a few kilometers in diameter that have retrograde orbits (they revolve around Saturn in the opposite direction to their rotation).
They differ from regular moons (such as titan or encumbered) in which they orbit much larger distances, following very inclined or elliptical trajectories, so that the majority were “captured” gravitationally by Saturn instead of having formed on the original protoplanetary disc.
The challenge of name. At the moment, the 128 new moons are identified with provisional denominations of letters and numbers (S/2020 S1, S/2019 S14, etc.). Like all Saturn’s moons, They will receive names that come from gallic, Nordic or Inuit mythology.
In general, they will be classified according to their orbital characteristics and their possible common origin. The NORSE group has several subgroups: Phoebe (close to the moon pHOEBE, so they could have emerged from clashes capable of fragmenting it), Mundilfari (from recent collisions) or Kari (from multiple catches or fractures). And so, successively.
How many have to discover? Despite the advances in telescopes and image analysis techniques, it seems that we have reached the limit of what we can detect in the vicinity of Saturn, at least systematically with current technology.
There is evidence that there could be even smaller objects, but the instrumental limitations added to the light dispersed by the planet, the earth’s atmosphere and the sensitivity of the telescopes make it difficult to see much further.
Image | Cassini (Nasa, that, like this)
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