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Top Comments: Saturn's Current Tally of Moons Is 274. [1]
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Date: 2025-03-13
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[h/t BeninSC]
In a recently published study performed by a collaboration of astronomers from the United Sates, Canada, Taiwan and France, 128 previously unknown moons were discovered orbiting the planet Saturn, increasing the total number of known moons orbiting that planet to 274, nearly doubling the previous number. Given that the newly updated total of moons in the Solar System 428, this means that Saturn hosts more than half of the moons in the Solar System.
“These moons are a few kilometers in size and are likely all fragments of a smaller number of originally captured moons that were broken apart by violent collisions, either with other Saturnian moons or with passing comets,” said Dr. Brett Gladman, professor in the UBC department of physics and astronomy. “A mystery within Saturn’s irregular moon system was a key motivator for the latest search: given the high number of small compared to large moons, there was likely a collision somewhere within the Saturn system within the last 100 million years.” “Otherwise, any longer and these moons would have collided with each other and been blown into smithereens, which would preferentially reduce the ratio of small moons to bigger ones.”
While some may find it surprising that s there are so many moons orbiting Saturn, I remembered to elephant in the room, not mentioned in the article. Saturn has rings containing a huge number of bodies much smaller than the moons. I have to wonder if the contents of the rings were produced in the same collision as produced the hundreds of irregularly shaped, newly discovered moons. I remember reading somewhere that Saturn’s rings are unstable in the long-term, and must have formed in just the past 100 million years or so; they’ll eventually disappear in a similar timescale. It would have made sense to me to have related this new discovery to Saturn’s most identifiable characteristic.
Comments are below the fold.
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