Planet now has 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets in the solar system combined

Astronomers have discovered 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, giving it an insurmountable lead in the running tally of moons in the solar system.

Until recently, the “moon king” title was held by Jupiter, but Saturn now has a total of 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets combined. The team behind the discoveries had previously identified 62 Saturnian moons using the Canada France Hawaii telescope and, having seen faint hints that there were more out there, made further observations in 2023.

“Sure enough, we found 128 new moons,” said the lead researcher, Dr Edward Ashton, a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Academia Sincia in Taiwan. “Based on our projections, I don’t think Jupiter will ever catch up.”

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
      3·
      1 day ago

      It won’t leave, just slow to a much farther orbit, so that’s why I said future projection, or best we can do. Many of these moons seem to be in erratic and retrograde paths, something that can’t last even a “short” time, as you’d expect of remnants of breakups or of captured objects.