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HUGE increase in the number of moons around Saturn
Earlier today, astronomers announced that the ringed planet Saturn now has some 247 moons after a further 128 were discovered.
This means that Saturn has more moons than all the other planets in the Solar System combined. These new moons are between 2 to 4km wide and possibly formed by the collision of larger moons in the distant past. Many are also irregular or "potato shaped" and not round like many of the planetary moons we're used to seeing.
Saturn with several of its larger moons captured by Izaak Cerneaz using a Celestron 8" SCT telescope and posted to the BINTEL Society Facebook Group here.
These new discoveries were made by Edwin Aston and his team with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope using a technique familiar to many amateur astronomers in Australia and New Zealand: taking many hours of exposures and then stacking the images together.
One of the new moons of Saturn -image via Edwin Aston et al. The moon is the "dot" in the middle of the image.
Are these moons or just bits of rock in orbit around a the planet?
There is a vast number of small objects in the Solar System with more being found. Should these new, smaller space rocks be called "moons", simply because they're in orbit around a major planet?
“I don’t think there’s a proper definition for what is classed as a moon. There should be.” said Dr. Ashton.
“With current technology, I don’t think we can do much better than what has already been done for moons around Saturn, Uranus and Neptune." continued Dr Ashton.
Do these new moons have names yet?
These new moons have been recognised by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), although for now they're just numbers in a catalogue and haven't been assigned formal names. With so many new moons discovered, the MPC might have to get a bit creative with naming as they've likely run out of classical Greek, Roman and even Norse gods to name them after!
Some of the new moons of Saturn announced recently at the Minor Planet Center. You can read more about these spread over several bulletins starting here.
Can I see these newly discovered moons of Saturn in my telescope?
First of all - and we get asked this all the time - new discoveries like this are normally beyond the reach of the types of telescopes that our BINTEL customers use. While you will be able to see Saturn, its rings and many of its largest moons, these newly discovered ones won't be seen.
It does raise some interesting questions about just how chaotic the early period of formation of the Solar System.
With Saturn tricky to see as it disappears in the evening twilight, when it reappears in a few months time in the early morning sky, you'll be able to view it through your telescope knowing the chunks of rock orbiting around the ringed planet have just doubled in number - with possibly many more out there!
Cheers,
Earl White
BINTEL
12th March 2025
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