🌝 Astronomers discover 128 new moons around Saturn

• Saturn now has a total of 274 moons, making it the leading planet in the solar system in terms of moon count.
• The newly discovered moons are irregular objects just a few kilometers in size and can provide insights into the early history of the solar system.
• Researchers used the "shift and stack" technique, where astronomers take sequential images that track the moon's path across the sky and combine them to make the moon bright enough to detect.

Saturn takes the lead in the solar system's moon count

Astronomers have discovered 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, giving the planet a clear lead in the number of moons in the solar system. Until recently, Jupiter held the title of "moon king," but Saturn now has a total of 274 moons, almost twice as many as all other planets combined.

The research team behind the discovery had previously identified 62 Saturnian moons using the Canada France Hawaii telescope. After seeing faint signs that there might be more moons, they conducted additional observations during 2023.

"We actually found 128 new moons," says research leader Dr. Edward Ashton, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Academia Sincia in Taiwan. "Based on our projections, I don't think Jupiter will ever catch up."

Jupiter has 95 moons with confirmed orbits as of February 5, 2024.

Naming and formal recognition

The moons have been formally recognized by the International Astronomical Union this week and are currently assigned strings of numbers and letters. They will eventually receive names based on Gallic, Norse, and Canadian Inuit gods, in accordance with the convention for Saturn's moons.

Most of the new moons belong to the Norse group, which means astronomers are now searching for dozens of lesser-known Viking gods. "Eventually the criteria may need to be relaxed somewhat," says Ashton.

Discovery technique and moon characteristics

The moons were identified using the "shift and stack" technique, where astronomers take sequential images that track the moon's path across the sky and combine them to make the moon bright enough to detect.

All 128 new moons are "irregular moons," potato-shaped objects that are just a few kilometers across. The increasing number of these objects highlights potential future disagreements about what actually counts as a moon.

"I don't think there's a proper definition for what is classified as a moon. There should be," says Ashton. However, he adds that the team may have reached a limit for moon detection – for now.

"With current technology, I don't think we can do much better than what has already been done for moons around Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune," says Ashton.

Scientific significance

Closer observations of these small moons can give scientists insight into a turbulent period in the early solar system, where planets migrated in unstable orbits and collisions were common.

The new moons are grouped together, suggesting that many of them are remnants of much larger objects that collided and shattered within the last 100 million years. The moons all have large, elliptical orbits at an angle to moons closer to the planet.

"They are likely all fragments of a smaller number of originally captured moons that were broken apart by violent collisions, either with other Saturnian moons or with passing comets," says Professor Brett Gladman, an astronomer at the University of British Columbia.

Understanding the dynamics of Saturn's many moons can also help resolve questions about the origin of Saturn's rings, which scientists have suggested could be the aftermath of a moon that was torn apart by the planet's gravity.

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