Saturn goes ahead of Jupiter in 'planet with highest number of moons'

solar system has a new winner in moon department. Twenty new moons have been found around Saturn, giving ringed planet a total of 82, scientists said Monday. That beats Jupiter and its 79 moons. “It was fun to find that Saturn is true moon king,” said astromer Scott Sheppard of Carnegie Institution for Science. If it’s any consolation to Jupiter crowd, our solar system’s biggest planet — Jupiter — still has biggest moon. Jupiter’s Ganymede is almost half size of Earth. By contrast, Saturn’s 20 new moons are minuscule, each barely 3 miles (5 kilometers) in diameter.

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Used a telescope in Hawaii

Sheppard and his team used a telescope in Hawaii to spot Saturn’s 20 new moons over summer. About 100 even tinier moons may be orbiting Saturn, still waiting to be found, he said. Astromers have pretty much completed inventory of moons as small as 3 miles (5 kilometers) around Saturn and 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) around Jupiter, according to Sheppard. Future larger telescopes will be needed to see anything smaller.

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Babymoons of Saturn

It’s harder spotting mini moons around Saturn than Jupiter, Sheppard said, given how much farr Saturn is. “So seeing that Saturn has more moons even though it is harder to find m, shows just how many moons Saturn has collected over time,” he wrote in an email. se baby moons may have come from larger parent moons that broke apart right after Saturn formed. Seventeen of Saturn’s new moons orbit planet in opposite, or retrogre, direction. or three circle in same direction that Saturn rotates. y’re so far from Saturn that it takes two to three years to complete a single orbit.

“se moons are remnants of objects that helped form planets, so by studying m, we are learning about what planets formed from,” Sheppard wrote.

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Moon-naming contest

Just last year, Sheppard found 12 new moons around Jupiter. Carnegie Institution h a moon-naming contest for m; ar is planned w for Saturn’s new moons. jury is still out on wher any planets beyond our solar system have even more moons. For w, Saturn has most kwn moons. Monday’s anuncement came from International Astromical Union’s Mir Planet Center.

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