Latest news with #AcademiaSincia
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Which planet has the most moons? Saturn dethrones Jupiter.
The ringed gas giant Saturn has officially replaced Jupiter as the planet in our solar system with the most moons. The International Astronomical Union officially recognized 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, bringing the new total up to 274 moons. The moons were discovered by a group of astronomers from Taiwan, Canada, the United States, and France. Between 2019 and 2021, they used the Canada France Hawaii Telescope to repeatedly monitor the sky around Saturn. With this telescope, they could see the region in minute detail. They also combined multiple images together to strengthen an astronomical object's signal and make it more clear. Initially, they spotted 62 moons and a larger number of objects that they could not designate at the time. 'With the knowledge that these were probably moons, and that there were likely even more waiting to be discovered, we revisited the same sky fields for three consecutive months in 2023,' Edward Ashton, the lead researcher and a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Academia Sincia in Taiwan, said in a statement. 'Sure enough, we found 128 new moons. Based on our projections, I don't think Jupiter will ever catch up.' As of February 2024, Jupiter has 95 moons. By comparison, Mercury, and Venus are moonless, Earth has one moon, and Mars has two. Uranus and Neptune have 28 and 16 known moons, respectively. Despite not technically being a planet anymore, Pluto has five moons. The 128 new Saturnian satellites are all considered irregular moons. These are objects that orbit their host planet on an elliptical, inclined, or backwards path. They also tend to have been captured by their host planet early on in the history of the solar system. 'These moons are a few kilometers in size and 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,' University of British Columbia astronomer Brett Gladman said in a statement. A key mystery within Saturn's irregular moon system was a motivator for this latest moon searching mission. With Saturn's high number of small moons compared to larger moons, a collision somewhere with the Saturn system must have occurred within the last 100 million years. In astronomical terms, 100 million years is pretty recent. According to Gladman, any longer and these moons would have collided with each other and broken apart. The resulting bumper car-like collisions would have reduced the ratio of smaller moons to larger ones. [Related: Saturn has a slushy core and rings that wiggle. ] Most of the newly discovered moons are located near the Mundilfari subgroup of Saturn's moons. The team believes that given the size, number, and orbital concentration of these new moons, the Mundilfari subgroup is likely where this cosmic collision occurred. For now, this specific team's moon-spotting days may be behind them. '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,' said Ashton.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
128 New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn in Mindblowing Discovery
The race between Jupiter and Saturn for the most moons in the Solar System may have just finally come screeching to a halt. A team of scientists has found a whopping 128 previously unknown moons hanging around Saturn, in a discovery officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union. This brings the planet's total number of known moons to 274, leaving Jupiter, with its mere 95 moons, in the dust. The first hint that there were more moons awaiting discovery came between 2019 and 2021, when 62 such objects were identified. Other small objects were also spotted at the time that couldn't yet be designated. "With the knowledge that these were probably moons, and that there were likely even more waiting to be discovered, we revisited the same sky fields for three consecutive months in 2023," says astronomer Edward Ashton of Academia Sincia in Taiwan. "Sure enough, we found 128 new moons. Based on our projections, I don't think Jupiter will ever catch up." These moons, to be clear, are not like Earth's Moon, nice and large and pleasingly spherical. They are tiny moonlets, all blobby and potato-shaped, just a few kilometers across – what are known as irregular moons. The researchers believe that they originally comprised a small group of objects captured by gravity in Saturn's orbit early in the Solar System's history. A subsequent series of collisions would have smashed them to moony bits, resulting in the preponderance of small rocks the astronomers have found. In fact, they believe a collision must have taken place as recently as 100 million years ago, which is a very short eyeblink of time for a planet. The location of the moons, too, within the Norse group of Saturn's moons, suggests that this is the place where the recent collision occurred. The Norse group are moons that orbit in a retrograde direction, at inclined angles, and on elliptical paths, outside Saturn's rings. Like the newly discovered moons, they, too, are relatively potatoey. Potatoes. Rings. Sounds familiar, somehow… One haul of 64 moons has been detailed in a new paper submitted to the Planetary Science Journal. The preprint is available on arXiv. Space Force's Secret Plane Returns After More Than a Year in Orbit Study Traces Our Solar System's Journey Through a Massive Galactic Wave Our Moon Is About to Turn Blood Red. Here's Why.
The Guardian
11-03-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Astronomers discover 128 new moons orbiting Saturn
Astronomers have discovered 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, giving it an insurmountable lead in the running tally of moons in the solar system. Until recently, the 'moon king' title was held by Jupiter, but Saturn now has a total of 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets combined. The team behind the discoveries had previously identified 62 Saturnian moons using the Canada France Hawaii telescope and, having seen faint hints that there were more out there, made further observations in 2023. 'Sure enough, we found 128 new moons,' said the lead researcher, Dr Edward Ashton, a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Academia Sincia in Taiwan. 'Based on our projections, I don't think Jupiter will ever catch up.' There are 95 moons of Jupiter with confirmed orbits as of 5 February 2024. The moons have been formally recognised by the International Astronomical Union this week and, for now, have been assigned strings of numbers and letters. They will eventually be given names based on Gallic, Norse and Canadian Inuit gods, in keeping with convention for Saturn's moons. Most of the new moons fall in the Norse cluster, meaning astronomers are now on the hunt for dozens of obscure Viking deities. 'Eventually the criteria may have to be relaxed a bit,' Ashton said. The moons were identified using the 'shift and stack' technique, in which astronomers acquire sequential images that trace the moon's path across the sky and combine them to make the moon bright enough to detect. All of the 128 new moons are 'irregular moons', potato-shaped objects that are just a few kilometres across. The escalating number of these objects highlights potential future disagreements over what actually counts as a moon. 'I don't think there's a proper definition for what is classed as a moon. There should be,' said Ashton. However, he added 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,' said Ashton. Closer observations of the bonanza of tiny moons could give scientists a window into a turbulent period in the early solar system, in which the planets migrated around in unstable orbits and collisions were common. The new moons are clumped together in groups, suggesting that many of them are the remnants of much larger objects that collided and shattered within the last 100m years. The moons all have large, elliptical orbits at an angle to those of 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,' said Prof Brett Gladman, an astronomer at the University of British Columbia. Understanding the dynamics of Saturn's many moons could also help resolve questions about the origin of Saturn's rings, which scientists have suggested could be the aftermath of a moon that was ripped apart by the planet's gravity. Separately, the European Space Agency Hera spacecraft will conduct a Mars flyby on Wednesday and come within 190 miles (300km) of its smallest and most distant moon, Deimos. The moon, which is about 7 miles across, is thought to be the product of a giant impact on Mars or an asteroid that was captured in the red planet's orbit. Hera will also image Mars's larger moon, Phobos, before continuing its mission to survey an asteroid, Dimorphos, that was deliberately hit with a Nasa probe three years ago. Once it reaches the asteroid, Hera will perform a detailed post-impact survey to help develop technology that could deflect dangerous asteroids that may collide with Earth in future.
