Saturn has officially claimed the title of the solar system’s “moon king” after scientists discovered 128 new moons orbiting the ringed planet, surpassing Jupiter’s total. The latest findings bring Saturn’s moon count to 274, while Jupiter lags behind with 95 confirmed moons.
Dr. Edward Ashton, the senior researcher, affirmed the finding, saying, “Based on our projections, I don’t think Jupiter will ever catch up.” The research team first identified 62 of the moons with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and later validated further results from additional observations in 2023.
The International Astronomical Union has now officially named all of Saturn’s moons. Although they are now being referred to by numbers, they will later be named after the Gallic, Norse, and Canadian Inuit gods.
The “shift and stack” method of tracking the motion of a moon across the sky and collecting several images that have been processed to enhance clarity is how all 128 newly discovered moons were identified. Irregular moons characterize all 128, since each has a shape that can best be described as potato-like with elliptical orbits. Only a few kilometers across, these moons could fuel controversies about what might constitute a true moon.
“There’s no proper definition of what classifies as a moon. There should be,” Ashton said.
This discovery could shed light on the origins of Saturn’s iconic rings, which scientists believe may have formed when a moon was torn apart by the planet’s gravitational forces.
This discovery may also illuminate a chaotic period in the early solar system, characterized by unstable planetary orbits and frequent cosmic collisions. The newly discovered moons seem to appear in distinct clusters, suggesting they are the remnants of larger celestial bodies that broke apart in violent impacts over the last 100 million years.
