- Scientists have now found four additional moons orbiting
Saturn- -bringing the number of satellites around the planet up to 22,
the biggest total in our solar system. Brett Gladman, an astronomer at
the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur, first spied two of the new objects
in images taken by the European Southern Observatory's 2.2-meter telescope
in Chile. A larger telescope in Hawaii then had a look and uncovered the
other two. The discovery will be announced at this week's meeting of the
American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Science.
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- The new moons are irregular, very small and much farther
away from the Saturn than its other 18 moons. [Their relative positions
are circled in the image above.] The largest of these tiny orbs, which
circle the planet at a distance of some 15 million kilometers, is only
50 kilometers across.
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- The astronomers guess that these new moons--instead of
emerging from dust clouds swirling around Saturn--probably got sucked into
orbit by the planet's gravitational pull as it cooled and formed. Such
an event is more likely in Saturn's neck of the solar system than our own
because it is nearer to the asteroid belt. That said, researchers have
demonstrated that these new moons are not merely asteroids streaking by
the large planet, and they plan to soon discount the remote possibility
that the objects are in fact comets.
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- These four moons are the first irregular moons found
around Saturn since the discovery of its only other irregular moon, Phoebe,
in 1898. Neighbor Jupiter has nine irregular moons, Uranus five and Neptune
two. Gladman's group found the irregular satellites around Uranus starting
in 1998--and they are still tracking other objects near Saturn. The problem
now will be coming up with names for the new heavenly bodies.
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- -- Kristin Leutwyler
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