Many of these moons are remnants of planets left behind after moon-moon collisions.
For years, ringed Saturn was the planet with the most moons. But he was dethroned as the “Moon King” in February of this year after astronomers discovered 12 new moons around gas giant Jupiter, bringing its total number of moons to 95. But now, a team of astronomers led by the University of British Columbia has discovered 62. new moons of Saturn, bringing the official number to 145. By overtaking Jupiter, Saturn also became the first planet to discover more than 100 moons, the researchers said.
Professor Brett Gladman, a university astronomer who was involved in the observations, was quoted as saying: “Saturn has not only doubled the number of its moons, it now has more moons than all the other planets in the solar system combined.” saying before Watchman.
The outlet said the new celestial bodies are being identified by numbers, but will soon be named after Gallic, Norse, and Canadian Inuit deities, in keeping with convention for Saturn’s moons.
Many of these new space objects are the remnants of planets left behind after a collision with the Moon and Moon and are irregular in shape.
Despite this, scientists are hopeful that Jupiter may temporarily close in. Right now, Saturn has more moons.
“At constant size, there are three times more moons of Saturn than there are of Jupiter. Not all of them have been identified yet, but we already know the final answer,” Gladman said. Watchman.
Before this discovery, Saturn had 83 moons that were recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), according to space.com.
The team that discovered these new celestial bodies around Saturn used a technique called “shift and jam,” which uses a set of images that shift at the same speed as the moon moves across the sky to boost the fainter object’s signal.
The outlet said that moons that are too faint to be seen in individual images can reveal themselves in the resulting “stacked image.”
The team used data collected by the Canada, France and Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) atop Maunakea Peak in Hawaii between 2019 and 2021.