{"id":23782,"date":"2025-03-11T20:13:19","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T21:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23782"},"modified":"2025-03-11T21:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T21:23:09","slug":"saturn-gains-128-new-moons-bringing-its-total-to-274","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23782","title":{"rendered":"Saturn Gains 128 New Moons, Bringing Its Total to 274"},"content":{"rendered":"

The objects around the ringed planet are tiny, but some of them may have formed relatively recently in the solar system\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

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Astronomers say they have discovered more than 100 new moons around Saturn, possibly the result of cosmic smashups that left debris in the planet\u2019s orbit as recently as 100 million years ago.<\/p>\n

The gas giant planets of our solar system have many moons, which are defined as objects that orbit around planets or other bodies that are not stars. Jupiter has 95 known moons, Uranus 28, and Neptune 16. The 128 in the latest haul around Saturn bring its total to 274.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the largest batch of new moons,\u201d said Mike Alexandersen at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, an author of a paper announcing the discovery that will be published in the days ahead in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.<\/p>\n

Many of these moons are rocks only a few miles across \u2014 small compared with our moon, which is 2,159 miles across. But as long as they have trackable orbits around their parent body, the scientists who catalog objects in the solar system consider them to be moons. That is the responsibility of the International Astronomical Union, which ratified the 128 new moons<\/a> of Saturn on Tuessday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The forthcoming paper\u2019s lead author, Edward Ashton of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, will have naming rights for the objects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever discovers them gets the right to name them,\u201d said Dr. Alexandersen, who works with the International Astronomical Union to confirm the existence of objects in the solar system. The current naming scheme for moons on Saturn is based on characters from Norse and other mythology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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100 Images From Cassini\u2019s Mission to Saturn<\/h2>\n

NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft burned up in Saturn\u2019s atmosphere in September 2017, after 20 years in space.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The objects around the ringed planet are tiny, but some of them may have formed relatively recently in the solar system\u2019s history.Astronomers say they have discovered more than 100 new moons around Saturn, possibly the result of cosmic smashups that left debris in the planet\u2019s orbit as recently as 100 million years ago.The gas giant planets of our solar system have many moons, which are defined as objects that orbit around planets or other bodies that are not stars. Jupiter has 95 known moons, Uranus 28, and Neptune 16. The 128 in the latest haul around Saturn bring its total to 274.\u201cIt\u2019s the largest batch of new moons,\u201d said Mike Alexandersen at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, an author of a paper announcing the discovery that will be published in the days ahead in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.Many of these moons are rocks only a few miles across \u2014 small compared with our moon, which is 2,159 miles across. But as long as they have trackable orbits around their parent body, the scientists who catalog objects in the solar system consider them to be moons. That is the responsibility of the International Astronomical Union, which ratified the 128 new moons of Saturn on Tuessday.The forthcoming paper\u2019s lead author, Edward Ashton of the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, will have naming rights for the objects.\u201cWhoever discovers them gets the right to name them,\u201d said Dr. Alexandersen, who works with the International Astronomical Union to confirm the existence of objects in the solar system. The current naming scheme for moons on Saturn is based on characters from Norse and other mythology.100 Images From Cassini\u2019s Mission to SaturnNASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft burned up in Saturn\u2019s atmosphere in September 2017, after 20 years in space.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23784,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23782"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23785,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23782\/revisions\/23785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}