The largest number of satellites in the solar system, 145 in total… Jupiter in second place has 95
A research team led by Professor Brett Gladman and Dr. Edward Ashton at the University of British Columbia in Canada reported the discovery of 62 new satellites orbiting Saturn.
As a result, the number of Saturn’s satellites increased to 145, surpassing Jupiter’s 95 and regaining the most power among the planets in the solar system. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) will officially recognize the Canadian research team’s observations at the end of May.
Prior to this, in February of this year, a research team at the Carnegie Institution of the United States announced that they had discovered 12 new satellites orbiting Jupiter, making it the planet with the most satellites in the solar system, beating Saturn’s previous record of 83. After that, Jupiter’s moons were added, and it is now known to have 95 moons.
However, within three months, a research team from the University of British Columbia announced that they had discovered 62 new moons on Saturn. Accordingly, Saturn has a total of 145 satellites, surpassing the number of satellites of Jupiter again, becoming the planet with the most satellites in the solar system.
This increase in the number of Saturn’s moons is due to advances in observational technology. The research team is known to have found an undiscovered satellite by analyzing data observed by the Canadian, French and Hawaii Observatory (CFHT) telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii from 2019 to 2021.
To identify satellites that had not been discovered because of their smallness or darkness, the research team used a ‘shift and stack’ technique in which a number of consecutive images taken over three hours were gradually moved and overlapped.
After collating objects detected over two years, the research team discovered 62 new satellites. Among the satellites discovered this time, even a small satellite with a diameter of about 2.5 km is included.
Dr. Edward Ashton, who led the project at the University of British Columbia and is currently a member of the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Central Research Institute of Taiwan, said, “Tracking Saturn’s moons reminds me of a ‘dot-connect game’ for children. The various aspects of the satellites in the data. “But with over 100 games listed on the same page, it’s hard to tell which point belongs to which puzzle.”
In fact, most of the 62 newly discovered satellites are irregular satellites with elliptical orbits far from Saturn or orbits retrograde to Saturn’s rotation.
Saturn’s irregular moons are grouped according to the inclination of their orbital plane and are named after Inuit, Gallic, and Norse mythology. The satellites discovered this time will also be named after the mythology of each group they belong to.
The team speculates that a group of Saturn’s irregular moons with similar orbits may be the remains of another large moon that collapsed about 100 million years ago. Brett Gladman, a professor of astronomy at the University of British Columbia, said: “There is growing evidence that a medium-sized moon orbited Saturn in reverse and collided 100 million years ago.”
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