Saturn overtakes Jupiter with 62 new moons

Around the Saturn became the existence of 62 new moons confirmed. The planet with its characteristic rings is coming now a total of 145 moons. After an interim lead by Jupiter, Saturn is once again the planet in the solar system with the most moons. Around the Jupiter 12 new moons were confirmed in February. The largest planet in the solar system now stops 92 Mouths.

Long-term observation required

Scientists have known for years that Saturn probably has more moons than Jupiter. A new observation method, in which barely discernible objects around planets are precisely tracked and their light signals are enhanced by means of superimposed images (shifting and stacking), has become one whole set of objects discovered the sometimes only 2.5 kilometers wide are. However, their orbits had to be thoroughly explored in order to classify them as moons that have stable orbits around Saturn.

The work was carried out by an international team of scientists around Edward Ashton done by the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan. That was for the observations Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope used at Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The existence of one of the moons the team observed was revealed already announced in 2021the remaining 62 pieces will now follow.

Paint by numbers with no caption

“Tracking these moons reminded me of a child’s game of paint by numbers,” says Edward Ashton of the study. “But we played round 100 games on the same sheet and didn’t know which point to which figure belonged to.” The orbits of the moons are sometimes extremely complicated.

The 62 objects were assigned to 3 known groups of moons around Saturn. The largest group is the so-called nordic group. How Science Alert reports, it may have resulted from the collision of a moon, orbiting in the opposite direction of Saturn’s rotation, with another moon. The collision could have happened around 100 million years ago.