Saturn sets new record in solar system’s ‘moon race’, here’s what it is

Gadgets Now Bureau / Gadgets Now / Updated: May 15, 2023, 06:05PM IST

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Saturn sets new record in solar system’s ‘moon race’, here’s what it is

Astronomers have discovered 62 new moons orbiting Saturn, taking the total number to 145 - the most in our solar system. Saturn now has 50 more moons than the gas giant Jupiter.

Additionally, Saturn becomes the first planet to get more than a 100 moons in our solar system. Previously, Jupiter had the record of having 95 recognised moons.

Solar System's 'moon race'
The discovery means that Saturn regained its crown from Jupiter for having the most known moons, said researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The largest planet in our solar system took the top spot in February after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally designated 12 moons orbiting it.

"Saturn not only has nearly doubled its number of moons, it now has more moons than all the rest of the planets in the solar system combined," the Guardian quoted Prof Brett Gladman, an astronomer at the UBC, as saying.

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Naming of Saturn's moons
The new moons have been assigned strings of numbers and letters for now. They will be given names based on Gallic, Norse and Canadian Inuit gods, in keeping with convention for Saturn's moons.

It is to be noted that all of the new moons are in the class of irregular moons, which are characterised by their large, elliptical, and inclined orbits compared to regular moons. Saturn has 24 regular moons.

The team, led by Dr. Edward Ashton, who started the research project at UBC, used data taken using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on top of Mauna Kea, Hawaii between 2019 and 2021.

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The original discovery search was done in 2019, uncovering the moons in a meticulous search of the deep CFHT imaging acquired that year.

In order to officially designate heavenly bodies as moons, they must be tracked for several years to make sure they are certainly orbiting the planet.

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