Toronto : An international team of astronomers has discovered 62 new moons orbiting Saturn, bringing the total number of moons of the planet to 145. In the race for the number of moons in the Solar System, Saturn has once again overtaken Jupiter and reached the first place. Researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) said the new discoveries mean that Saturn has not only regained its crown for the most known moons (overtaking Jupiter, which has 95 recognized moons), but that it has more than 100 moons. It is also the first planet with moons discovered.
Jupiter, which added its 12 new moons in February, has 95 moons formally recognized by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Not only has Saturn almost doubled the number of moons it has, it now has more moons than all the other planets in the solar system combined, Professor Brett Gladman, an astrophysicist at UBC, reported in the Guardian. These new moons of Saturn have just been denoted by numbers and letters. They would later be given names based on Gallic, Norse and Canadian Inuit deities, as has been the tradition for Saturn’s moons.
24 is the regular moon
All new moons are in the category of irregular moons. They are believed to have been initially captured on them by the host planet. Irregular moons have larger, elliptical, and inclined orbits than regular moons. The number of known irregular moons of Saturn has now more than doubled to 121. Saturn has 24 regular moons.
Read the Latest India News Today on The Eastern Herald.
