How many moons does Saturn have
On October 8, Saturn was found with 20 new moons, sitting firmly as the satellite king of the solar system! The asteroid center of the International Astronomical Union announced on the 7th that astronomers have found 20 new Saturn satellites, which has increased the number of titans to 82, surpassing Jupiter's 79 satellites and becoming the planet with the largest number of satellites in the solar system. According to the Carnegie Science Center, 17 of the 20 satellites found this time are in Saturn's retrograde orbit and 3 are in anterograde orbit. The 20 satellites are all about 5 kilometers in diameter. On the other hand, the new satellite naming competition is beginning.
Scott middot, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, who led the study; Shepard said, 'it's exciting to find them. These moons are far from Saturn'.
It is reported that among the 20 newly discovered Titans, each with a diameter of about five kilometers, 17 are 'retrograde', that is, the direction of running around Saturn is opposite to the direction of Saturn's rotation. Among the three anterograde Titans, two revolve around Saturn in a cycle of about two years, and the other takes three years. In addition, one of the moons is the farthest from Saturn.
Shepard said that studying the orbits of these satellites can not only reveal their origin, but also understand the surrounding environment when Saturn formed.
On June 15, 2017 local time, NASA announced a picture of Saturn's moon Titan taken by the narrow angle camera and night view filter of the 'Cassini' Saturn probe, with a shooting height of about 507000 km.
It is reported that scientists have found 20 new Titans through algorithmic analysis of the images found by the Pleiades telescope on maunaki volcano in Hawaii. It is said that the algorithm can distinguish between stationary stars, galaxies and satellites around Jupiter.
When the solar system was born, a large amount of gas and dust around the sun gathered to become the eight known planets. But Shepard believes that after Saturn formed 4 billion years ago, Saturn's gravity attracted passing asteroids and comets, which have been orbiting around Saturn since then.
Shepard said there may be more satellites around Saturn waiting to be discovered, but astronomers need larger telescopes to observe these satellites less than 5 kilometers in diameter. The orbital periods of 17 retrograde satellites and one anterograde satellite are relatively long, at least three years. The other two anterograde satellites are closer to Saturn, and their orbital periods are about two years.
Saturn suddenly has so many 'children', and naming is also a trouble. Before, five new satellites of Jupiter have just been named, but at least 22 satellites of Jupiter have not been named. The research team of Carnegie Science Center previously found 12 new Ganymede, and the naming of the 20 found this time is also a big problem.
The research team also launched a satellite naming competition. The naming rule is to name the characters in Nordic, Celtic and Inuit myths. If you could name a satellite, what would you name it