Twelve New Moons For Saturn

[zavvy]

<b>Twelve New Moons For Saturn </b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />Astronomers have discovered 12 new moons orbiting Saturn, bringing its number of natural satellites to 46. <br /><br />The moons are small, irregular bodies - probably only about 3-7km in size - that are far from Saturn and take about two years to complete one orbit. <br /><br />All but one circles Saturn in the opposite direction to its larger moons - a characteristic of captured bodies. <br /><br />Jupiter is the planet with the most moons, 63 at the last count. Saturn now has 46. Uranus has 27 and Neptune 13. <br /><br />The latest ones were found last year using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. Confirmation observations were made last month using the Gemini North telescope also situated in Hawaii. <br /><br />Planetary puzzles <br /><br />Dave Jewitt of the University of Hawaii, co-discoverer of the objects, told the BBC News website that they were found as part of a detailed survey of the outer planets in order to better understand their origin. <br /><br />The newly-found satellites were probably formed in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and scattered out of it by the tug of Jupiter's gravity. <br /><br />"The key question is how they became captured by Saturn. The current models devised to explain how such bodies are captured are unable to explain why they reach the orbits they do," said Dr Jewitt. <br /><br />"The new discoveries should improve our knowledge of satellite systems in general and should, eventually, lead to an understanding of how such small, irregular bodies are captured by the gravity of giant planets". <br /><br />"Having more satellites to study will give us more data to plug into our computer simulations that may tell us what happened", he added. <br /><br />Astronomers have found that all four giant planets - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - possess about the same number of small irregular satellites

 

[abq_farside]

Are all objects that orbit planets considered moons? I was just wondering because when related to the planetary scale, not all objects orbiting the sun are considered planets (ie. Pluto is boarderline by some estimations). I just wondered if they have other names (other than moons) for smaller objects orbiting a planet. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em><font size="1" color="#000080">Don't let who you are keep you from becoming who you want to be!</font></em></p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Only exception I can think of is Comet Shoemaker-Levy at Jupiter. <br /><br /> Earth encounters meteor streams from some comets, presumably other planets do too, but can't think of a mechanism that would cause a portion of a stream to go into orbit around a planet. And if there were such structures orbiting a planet, do not think we have the hardware to detect it yet, except perhaps in the case of earth and the material was back lit during a solar eclipse.<br /><br /><br />Gee, did I just hypothosize some thing plausible? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[chebby]

Natural satellite is a term which I think is common for small junk orbiting planets and stars.

 

[CalliArcale]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I was just wondering because when related to the planetary scale, not all objects orbiting the sun are considered planets (ie. Pluto is boarderline by some estimations).<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Actually, all natural satellites of the Sun are called planets. But only a few are called "major planets". The tens of thousands of smaller objects are called "minor planets", a category which includes asteroids, comets, KBOs, and pretty much everything else orbiting the Sun besides the eight or nine major planets. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>