Latest news with #BrettGladman
Filipino Times
14-03-2025
- Science
- Filipino Times
Saturn reclaims 'Moon King' title with discovery of 128 new moons
Saturn has officially reclaimed its title as the 'Moon King' of the solar system after astronomers discovered 128 new moons orbiting the planet. This brings Saturn's total to 274 moons, leaving Jupiter—its closest rival—far behind with just 95 confirmed moons as of February 2024. The discovery was made by a team of astronomers using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope, who had already identified 62 Saturnian moons. In 2023, they took another look and confirmed the presence of even more hidden moons, which have now been officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Unlike Saturn's large and well-known moons like Titan and Enceladus, these new 'irregular' moons are small, potato-shaped, and only a few kilometers across. To find them, scientists used a special technique called 'shift and stack,' where they took multiple images over time, tracking the moons' movement across the sky and combining the images, making the moon bright enough to detect. Interestingly, the newly discovered moons are clumped into groups, suggesting they were once part of larger moons that broke apart due to violent collisions with comets or other space objects. These fragments, now orbiting Saturn in wide and tilted paths, may have been created in the last 100 million years. '[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, in a statement.
CBC
13-03-2025
- Science
- CBC
Saturn solidifies its title as moon king with the discovery of 128 new moons
If you're a fan of our night sky here on Earth and its singular moon, then you'd probably really, really love the view from Saturn. A team of scientists — including a Canadian from the University of British Columbia — have identified an additional 128 moons orbiting the ringed planet, bringing Saturn's total moon count to 274. "Understanding how the planets formed and where [they] came from is always quite awe-inspiring," Brett Gladman, a University of British Columbia professor and researcher who helped observe the new moons, told As It Happens host Nil Koksal. The findings, which mean Saturn has more moons than the rest of the other planets in our solar system combined, were ratified on Tuesday by the International Astronomical Union. Jupiter and Saturn have been locked in a battle for the most moons for years — with Saturn stealing the crown from Jupiter only two years ago when the same group of researchers found 64 additional moons orbiting it. But scientists say this discovery likely settles the score once and for all. "We don't think that Jupiter will ever be able to reclaim that title," Gladman said. He and the other scientists working on the project made the discovery using the Canada France Hawaii Telescope, a 3.6-metre optical telescope on the summit of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii. Scientists have been capturing pictures of the moons using the telescope since 2019. The researchers aligned and layered 44 of those images on top of one another in order to enhance the appearance of the moons and determine what they were. These moons are nothing like Earth's very own, however. Sara Mazrouei, a planetary scientist and educational developer at Humber Polytechnic, says that while we tend to think of a spherical shape when we hear the word moon, anything that orbits a planet, or another body in space that is not a sun, is considered a moon. Mazrouei says many of the moons surrounding other planets in our solar system — including the ones observed here — are in fact only a few kilometres across in size and oddly shaped, like an asteroid. Those irregular shapes and small sizes also give clues into how the moons likely formed, Gladman says. WATCH | Saturn smashes record as the master of moons in our solar system: Saturn smashes record as the master of moons in our solar system 18 hours ago Duration 4:04 All of the planets in our solar system are unique in their own way. One of the most recognizable is Saturn, famous for its incredible rings. But now, the gas giant has cemented its dominance in another area: moons! Here with the details is CBC climate and science specialist Darius Mahdavi. The group of scientists believes that around the time Saturn was forming some four billion years ago, it pulled a few moderately large moons into its orbit. Over the preceding millennia, those moons have collided from time to time, breaking them into smaller pieces that continue to orbit Saturn, according to Gladman. Each of those smaller pieces are considered individual moons, and is part of why Saturn's tally is so high. Mazrouei says that same smashing-up process could some day happen to Jupiter's moons, allowing them to multiply. But she adds events like that are pretty rare — meaning Saturn's title is fairly safe, at least for the next few hundred million years. Regardless, she says it's a good day to be a fan of the ringed planet.
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.
