They discovered new moons on Saturn: with 145 satellites, this is a record in the solar system

worth moonsAnd Saturn Maybe he overdid it Jupiter for the first time. Earlier this year, scientists on the planet recorded the last 12 moons New, which at that time reached 95, making it the most occupied in our solar system, since Saturn 83 moons confirmed by then. But now astronomers have announced a discovery 62 additional satellites From Saturn, and raise their number to 145, according to launch responsible University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada.

Thus, the researchers believe that Jupiter has no chance of having more moons than Saturn. “Saturn is going to win big,” said Mike Alexandersen, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who contributed to the findings. New York times. He sneered, “I don’t think it’s a contest anymore.”

titan, The first known moon of Saturn was discovered 1655 by a Dutch scientist Christian Higgins. then, Jean-Dominique Cassini Detection of four more among 1671 and 1684. Astronomers have continued to discover more satellites over the centuries. Based on 2004 to 2017a spacecraft named after Cassini has studied Saturn up close and discovered more moons, according to European Space Agency.

Two groups of astronomers made the new observations. One of the moons around Saturn was discovered in the mid-2000s using The Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. Note the other Saturn from 2019 to 2021 using Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Above the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. While the potential moons were first discovered many years ago, it has taken that long to track down the objects and confirm that they are, in fact, orbiting the planet.

Altogether, the researchers found 63 new moonsand the first discovery was announced in 2021. “Saturn has not nearly doubled the number of its moons now It has more satellites than all other planets of the solar system together,” said Brett Gladman, co-author of the discovery and an astronomer at the University of British Columbia.

All of the newly discovered satellites are irregular satellites, which means they have large inclined orbits, according to the official UBC statement reporting the new findings. It orbits the planet between 9.5 and 29 million km.

Saturn now, then, has it 121 irregular moons and 24 regular moons are known. The newly announced smallest of the moons has a diameter of about 25 kilometers, while Titan, the largest of Saturn’s moons, has a diameter of more than 4,800 kilometers. Some researchers estimated in a previous paper that Saturn has about 150 irregular moons that are at least three kilometers in diameter.

“There are still about 30 finders in this size range and probably hundreds, if not thousands, of Saturn’s moons of smaller proportions,” explained Edward Ashton, who led the research with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and now works at Academia Sinica. Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics of Taiwan.

Saturn’s irregular moons have been combined into three orbital groups based on their tilted paths, according to a UBC statement. Scientists believe that the oldest moons collided and broke up, creating the moons we see today. These moons are a good key to understanding some of the big questions about the solar system. They have the imprints of events that occurred in the early solar system.

Read on