Planet Saturn has got its game to recover the title of the "planet with the largest number of moons", surpassing Jupiter, which briefly started to lead the pack in February with its 12 newfound moons. New research has found 62 new moons orbiting Saturn, bringing the total number of natural satellites Saturn has officially discovered to 145. In contrast, the number of Jupiter's moons, 95, has been confirmed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
As previously mentioned, numbers and letters have been assigned to the newly discovered moons of Saturn at the moment. As is the case with Saturn's moons, these moons will eventually be given names that are derived from Norse, Canadian Inuit gods, and Gallic.
Saturn’s ‘Games of Moons’: Details Inside
Numerous small moons orbit Jupiter and Saturn, according to reports. Experts accept that these moons are leftovers of bigger moons that collided with one another or with comets and asteroids.
It is thought that similar processes also took place on Neptune and Uranus, but finding and studying their moons is even more difficult because of how far apart they are from Earth.
According to another report, Nasa's upcoming Dragonfly mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2027 has the potential to allow for close-up observations of at least one of Saturn's smaller outer moons.
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The study also mentioned a new way to find dimmer and smaller satellites called "shift and stack." When the data are combined using this strategy, each image is shifted at a rate that matches the moon's movement across the sky.
Saturn’s ‘Games of Moons’: Overview
According to the latest research on Saturn's rings, the researchers have made a remarkable discovery that suggests the rings were acquired relatively recently in the grand timeline of the history of the solar system.
Experts have come to the conclusion that the colossal rings did not form concurrently with the planet itself by analyzing data gathered by Nasa's Cassini spacecraft. Instead, they think that these magnificent rings formed no more than 400 million years ago.
The co-author of the study affirmed, "It is normal to imagine that the rings have been framed along with Saturn [which is] around 4.5bn years old."