Saturn has 128 new moons with odd orbits and mysterious origins

Saturn has always commanded a sense of wonder. Its famous rings glimmer in countless images, but experts say there is more going on than meets the eye. In a surprising twist, astronomers have announced that Saturn boasts 274 known moons.

Researcher Dr. Edward Ashton, a postdoctoral fellow at the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics in Taiwan, played a major role in bringing these new objects to light.

Saturn and its many moons

This sudden jump in numbers has placed Saturn well ahead of Jupiter, which has 95 known moons.

The worldwide group responsible for certifying these findings, the International Astronomical Union, gave the official nod after tracking each object’s path around the gas giant.

“You need to be able to prove that the object is in orbit around the planet,” said Dr. Ashton, who also led a similar search two years ago. The team’s revelation happened through careful observations with the Canada France Hawaii Telescope in 2023. 

Moons with odd orbits

Observers describe these bodies as irregular moons because they move along tilted orbits and often circle Saturn backward. Many are no more than a few miles across.

Some are so faint that astronomers used a special “shift and stack” method to tease out their dim light. The approach lines up multiple images to expose the subtle trails left by these elusive travelers.

Tracing cosmic collisions

Scientists suggest the irregular moons reveal a history of cosmic smashups. One event may have occurred around 100 million years ago, flinging debris outward and creating clumps of smaller bodies.

Fragments could also include bits of objects that originally formed elsewhere in the solar system. These shards might have ended up around Saturn after giant impacts near or within the planet’s orbit.

Norse mythology in space

A handful of these newly confirmed satellites belong to a group called Mundilfari, named for a Norse deity. Astronomers link 47 of the latest discoveries to this cluster.

“This is implying we could be having collisional events, and we’re seeing the shrapnel in the population of tiny moons,” said Michele Bannister, an astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

The astronomers suspect these fragments all broke off from a moon tens of miles across, which may have collided with another object during Saturn’s more chaotic past. 

A glimpse into the early solar system

Each batch of small, oddly shaped moons adds more clues about shifting planetary dynamics.

Team member Brett Gladman, an astronomer at the University of British Columbia, contributed to identifying possible families linked to these fragments.

He and others compare the process to mapping out a family tree of lost moons. Researchers look at subtle patterns in orbital characteristics to figure out if certain groups share a common ancestor.

Possibility of undiscovered moons

Experts believe that numerous undiscovered moons could still linger beyond Saturn’s rings, spread out as far as 18 million miles (29 million kilometers) from the planet’s center. Some might measure only a fraction of a mile across.

Probing them with powerful instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope may offer rare details, though the objects are incredibly small and dim.

Even so, each speck has the potential to refine scientists’ understanding of Saturn’s environment and its turbulent past.

Naming Saturn’s new moons

The newly identified moons currently have temporary labels consisting of numbers and letters. “Whoever discovers them gets the right to name them,” said Dr. Mike Alexandersen, who works with the International Astronomical Union.

“Maybe at some point they’ll have to expand the naming scheme further,” he added. Saturn’s naming system calls for mythological figures, drawing from Norse, Gallic, and Inuit folklore. 

Saturn’s upgraded moon roster

All of the newcomers sit outside the orbit of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon which is 3,200 miles (5,100 kilometers) across. Titan is even bigger than Mercury, but these fresh finds are minuscule by comparison.

Their size does not make them any less intriguing, though. Many revolve at dramatic angles and in eccentric loops, serving as cosmic markers for what might have happened long ago in the outer solar system.

Saturn’s upgraded moon roster captures attention from both professional astronomers and casual stargazers. Each discovery sparks new questions about planetary formation, ring origins, and the complicated dance of objects around a giant world.

The study is published in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.

—–

Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates. 

Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

—–