Saturn secures its title as “King of the Moon” with a massive scale of the new moon
Saturn has just consolidated its title as “King of the Moon”, with its updated 274 satellites surrounding the gasoline giant. Record statistics put Saturn ahead of its lunar competitors, as the ring's planet is now officially spinning, almost twice as many moons as all other planets in the solar system.
An international team of astronomers recently discovered 128 new moons around Saturn using the Canadian French Hawaii telescope. Saturn discovered 62 new moons last year, regaining the title of Moon King, bringing its total to 145 moons. The Earth's main competition in the solar system, Jupiter has only 95 confirmed moons.
The two gas giants have fallen into a battle to have the most satellites in his orbit for years, but it's safe to say that Saturn has won a landslide game.
“Based on our predictions, I don’t think Jupiter will ever catch up,” said in a statement from the University of British Columbia.
The team monitored the sky around Saturn with the Canadian French Hawaii Telescope between 2019 and 2021, combining multiple telescopes to improve signals from astronomical objects. Their sky survey initially produced 62 moons, and more unrecognizable objects. Then, astronomers revisited the same skyfield for three months in 2023 to confirm the identity of the rest of the objects, that is, confirm that the object is the moon. This week, the International Astronomical Union endorsed the team’s discovery.
The 128 newly discovered satellites are considered irregular, meaning they are tiny fragments of the larger moon that may rupture by violent collisions with other Saturnian moons or passing comets, the researchers said. Most new satellites are located near the Mundilfari subgroup of Saturn's moons, which may be the site of collisions in the Saturn system over the past 100 million years, breaking the larger body into the nearest ID satellite.
“Our carefully planned years of movement have produced a large number of new satellites that tell us about the evolution of Saturn's irregular natural satellite population,” Ashton said.
The team is discovering the moon for the foreseeable future, as existing technology may have reached its limit when discovering new moons around distant planets such as Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. For now, Saturn will hold its crown as the king of the moon in the solar system.
