Astronomers discover 128 more moons around Saturn
Using a ground-based telescope, astronomers have now identified 128 new moons circling Saturn, bringing its moon count to 274, more than the total moons around all the other planets in the solar system combined.
Edward Ashton at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, and his colleagues found the new moons with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, revealing dozens that have previously evaded astronomers. They took hours of images of Saturn, adjusted them for the planet’s movement through the sky and stacked them on top of each other to reveal objects that would otherwise be too dim to see.
All the new moons are between 2 and 4 kilometres in diameter and are likely to have been formed hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago in collisions between larger moons, says Ashton.
That Saturn has so many moons should surprise no one. Saturn actually has possibly millions, maybe even billions, of moons, if you count every particle in its rings. In fact, the gas giant poses a problem for astronomers in defining what a moon actually is. How small must an object be before you stop calling it a moon?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Using a ground-based telescope, astronomers have now identified 128 new moons circling Saturn, bringing its moon count to 274, more than the total moons around all the other planets in the solar system combined.
Edward Ashton at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan, and his colleagues found the new moons with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, revealing dozens that have previously evaded astronomers. They took hours of images of Saturn, adjusted them for the planet’s movement through the sky and stacked them on top of each other to reveal objects that would otherwise be too dim to see.
All the new moons are between 2 and 4 kilometres in diameter and are likely to have been formed hundreds of millions or even billions of years ago in collisions between larger moons, says Ashton.
That Saturn has so many moons should surprise no one. Saturn actually has possibly millions, maybe even billions, of moons, if you count every particle in its rings. In fact, the gas giant poses a problem for astronomers in defining what a moon actually is. How small must an object be before you stop calling it a moon?
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I do not know the requirements for “moon” status, but I wonder if the clearing of an object’s orbital path, similar to the requirement for planet status, is one of them.
Yes, are all these object REALLY moons?
Strange there is no mention of orbital elements, such as inclinations.
“The newly discovered moons have been recognised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), and Ashton and his team will now get the right to name them. Ashton, who is Canadian, says he has approached a representative from Canada’s Indigenous peoples for suggestions, but is also mulling the idea of some kind of public naming contest.”
Easy: “Hoser001” through “Hoser274”
Ray Van Dune: Notice that the last thing Ashton considers is honoring any Canadians from his country’s past. Instead, he wants to give the laurels to the primitive stone age inhabitants who prior to the arrival of western civilization considered a good evening’s entertainment the slow and horrible torture of prisoners, including men, women, and even children.
And I am not making that up. Anyone who has spent any time educating themselves about early Canadian history will know this is true.
They might run out of hearth gods and heroes before Saturn runs out of moons. Ashton is probably just looking for names not used before
Anyone use Lord Dunsany?
Not a Canadian myself but plenty of extended/inlaw family is, including some Indian blood. None are amused by the whole “Indian School Graveyard” myth beloved of the Canadian left.
Yeah, I think when we’re getting down to under 5km, I am tempted to call them “moonlets.” Which, I know, ain’t a scientific term.
One thing I will say is that if Mr Ashton conducts this exercise with Jupiter, I fear he is going to need a lot more resources.
Re; Naming. I don’t know if Ashton’s motivations are oikophobic, but maybe he could consider naming the ones big enough to warrant a name after Canadian recipients of the Victoria Cross? There are 99 of them, at last check.
Until now, the convention for naming Saturnian moons has been to use a) names of Greco-Roman Titans, b) different characters of the Greco-Roman mythology, or c) or giants from other (Gallic, Inuit, or Norse) mythologies. Is the IAU going to abandon that convention?
“One of These Days Alice…”
Futurama
https://youtu.be/0P84NiVGJsw
(0:32)
”How small must an object be before you stop calling it a moon?”
I would suggest one requirement for being a moon should be similar to that of a planet: being in hydrostatic equilibrium (a measure of how much gravity forces the object to be round). Objects smaller than that orbiting a planet should be called moonlets.
So moons and moonlets orbit planets, and planets and asteroids orbit stars.
I like the hydrostatic equilibrium requirement as a possible limiter.
And just to clarify… a body needs to reach around 400 kilometers (248 miles) for icy bodies and 600 kilometers (372 miles) for rocky bodies to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium. By this constraint, then, only seven of Saturn’s moons (Titan, Rhea, Iapetus, Dione, Tethys, Enceladus, and Mimas) would qualify for the title…and the other 266 would be “moonlets.”