Right now, that would mean 145 moons around Saturn, which would put it first ahead of Jupiter and its 95 moons. The International Astronomical Union (IAU), since May 5, confirmation busy New arrivals.
Many of the latter are called “irregular” moons: they have different shapes, more like potatoes than our moon. It also orbits very far from Saturn: between 10 and 30 million km, compared to less than a million and a half for the largest moons, such as Titan. They are very small: 2 to 3 kilometers across, and many of them are part of three large groups of moons previously identified, suggesting that they are remnants of larger celestial bodies that were victims of a collision.
The three groups involved are called Inuit, Norse, and Gaul. Moons are currently identified by numbers and letters but according to Habits taken by UAIThey can have names taken from Inuit, Norse, and Gaelic mythology.
Possibly thousands more around Jupiter and Saturn, It was made by two teams of astronomers which was discovered separately these things these Last few yearsOpen the door to Redefining the word “moon” “, in the same way astronomers chose to redefine the word ‘planet’, when it appeared that the discovery of thousands of small celestial bodies like Pluto would complicate the picture of our solar system. Among the arguments in favor of redefining:
- The fact that Ganymede—Jupiter’s largest moon—is 5,000 kilometers across, larger than Mercury, but is in the same class as these pebbles less than 2 kilometers across, poses a logical problem.
- The fact that these objects orbit so far from Saturn may mean that they were once asteroids captured by Saturn’s powerful gravitational field.
- Finally, it is likely that many of these small bodies also orbit Uranus and Neptune, which could add hundreds more moons to the list. However, if this is the case, we will have to be patient before we discover them: Uranus is twice as far from the Sun as we are, and Neptune, three times.
