Announce The International Astronomical Union announced the joining of new members to the solar system, and the newly joined group represents 3 moons; One of them orbits the planet Uranus, and the other two orbit the planet Neptune.
The observation of the three satellites was not recent, but rather they were captured by telescope lenses several years ago, but confirmation of them and the announcement of their joining the family of the solar system came recently by the “Minor Planet Center” of the International Astronomical Union, which is the organization responsible for naming new celestial objects and bodies. In the solar system, such as moons, asteroids, and comets.
As is usual, after the discovery of any new celestial body, it is given a temporary symbol until it is named, and the naming of the new trio will be inspired by ancient literature and mythological stories.
The new moon of Uranus is a small dot next to the yellow arrow (Scott Sheppard)
The diameter of Uranus’ moon, designated S/2023U1, is only about 8 kilometers, which makes it one of the smallest known moons belonging to any of the eight planets in the solar system. It takes 680 days to complete an orbit around the planet, bringing the total number of Uranus moons to 28 moons so far.
Officials are looking forward to naming this new moon after one of the characters in the plays of the English writer William Shakespeare, which is the custom that used to name the discovered moons of Uranus, such as Titania, Oberon, and Becca.
As for the other two satellites, the first is symbolized by “S/2002 N5” and has a diameter of about 23 kilometers, and the second is symbolized by “S/2021 N1” and has a diameter of 14 kilometers. The first moon takes about 9 years to complete its orbit around Neptune, the farthest planet from the sun, while the second takes 27 years.
They will be named according to the custom of naming Neptune’s moons after the names of the “Nereids”, or sea mermaids as in Greek mythology, who are the daughters of the sea god Nereus according to legend.
Proteus is a small moon of Neptune (Shutterstock)
Observing satellites was not an easy process given their small size and the enormous distance separating them from the ground telescopes that were used to accomplish this task. Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science who participated in the three discoveries, said in a statement: The three discovered moons are the least bright ever. It required special image processing to reveal such faint objects.
The difficulty of the matter from a technical standpoint lies in the fact that its small size and distance from Earth make the effect of its movements minimal and cannot be observed in most pictures of the two huge planets Uranus and Neptune, especially when compared to the stars and galaxies in the background of the sky. To address this problem, astronomers took long-exposure images and stitched them together to build images. In this way, all the bright objects in the background, such as stars and galaxies, were scattered, and the stacking of the images in this way highlighted the discovered moons.
The discovery of moons and asteroids is not an exceptional or surprising event within the solar system, as this happens repeatedly. In February 2023, the International Astronomical Union announced the presence of 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter, bringing the total number of moons around the huge planet to 92, making it the highest number of any planet at that time.
But in May of the same year, the International Astronomical Union surprisingly announced the presence of 62 moons around Saturn, bringing the total number of its moons to 145, which led to it taking the title of “the planet with the largest number of moons.”
