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20 new moons of Saturn discovered

09.10.2019

The Center for Minor Planets of the International Astronomical Union reported that the number of known satellites of Saturn increased by twenty at once. Now there are 82 of them, thanks to which, in terms of the total number of satellites, Saturn is ahead of the previous record holder - Jupiter, around which 79 moons circle. New space objects were discovered by a team of astronomers led by Scott Sheppard from the Carnegie Institution (Washington, USA) using one of the world's largest telescopes "Subaru" (mirror diameter 8,2 m), located on top of the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii.

All open satellites have a diameter of about five kilometers. Seventeen of them move around Saturn in the opposite direction of the planet's rotation around its axis (retrograde direction). The three remaining moons rotate in the same way as Saturn. Among the latter are the two closest satellites to the planet, which take about two years to travel around Saturn. The rest of the moons have an orbital period of more than three years. One of the new retrograde moons is Saturn's most distant known moon.

The outer moons of Saturn appear to be grouped into three distinct clusters in terms of their orbital inclinations. They are called the Inuit, Norse and Gaulish groups, because astronomers give them names from the mythology of the respective peoples.
Perhaps these clusters once made up larger bodies that broke apart in the distant past. This was most likely due to collisions between moons or with external objects such as passing asteroids or comets. A similar grouping of the outer moons is also observed around Jupiter.

Observations of planetary satellites play an important role in studying how the planets of our solar system form and develop. In her "childhood" the Sun was surrounded by a rotating disk of gas and dust, from which the planets were born. Astronomers believe that a similar disk of gas and dust surrounded Saturn during its formation. The fact that discovered satellites continue to orbit Saturn after the breakup of the large moons that gave birth to them indicates that their collisions occurred after the formation of the planet was largely completed, and the disk had already practically disappeared. If a significant amount of gas or dust were present at this moment, then it would lead to strong friction of the smaller moons on them and their fall to the planet.

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