News, 20 New Moons Are Discovered, Putting Saturn Ahead of Jupiter (stars, satellites)
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A bigger telescope will have to be invented before more can be spotted
The solar system has a new winner in the moon department: 20 new moons have been found around Saturn, giving the ringed planet a total of 82, scientists said Monday. That beats Jupiter and its 79 moons, the AP reports.
3 miles in diameter... at some point these are just rocks.
Exactly. Over a third of Saturn's moons have a diameter of 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) or less. That smallest has a diameter of 0.3 km (300 meters, less than 1000 feet).
I think there should be a dwarf moon category for those satellites that are gravitationally rounded (ellipsoidal, like our Moon and all the planets) as opposed to those satellites that are just, as you say, big rocks.
At what point do Saturn’s rings qualify as moons as they are made up of distinct particles? Agree there needs to be a minimum size set. Would a 1000 foot-sized moon exert any meaningful gravitational pull? No.
At what point do Saturn’s rings qualify as moons as they are made up of distinct particles? Agree there needs to be a minimum size set. Would a 1000 foot-sized moon exert any meaningful gravitational pull? No.
Apparently, an object that's in a somewhat stable orbit around a planet or other object is considered to be a moon. There have been asteroids with a smaller rock orbiting it and calling it a moon. There could be thousands, if not more similar in size to those discovered, of these objects orbiting Saturn, and even Jupiter. Would a rock the size of a marble qualify as a moon? I would think such tiny objects could be considered as mini-moons or micro-moons. Should they all be given names? At some point, they'll run out of names. Maybe they should just be given a number and call it a day.
isnt there only one moon; although, several orbital satelites.
similar to how there is only one sun; but, billions of stars (one milky way, many galaxys).
Last edited by stanley-88888888; 10-13-2019 at 10:49 AM..
isnt there only one moon; although, several orbital satelites.
similar to how there is only one sun; but, billions of stars (one milky way, many galaxys).
Until relatively recently in history we didn't know that the other planets had moons so there was no need to distinguish our moon from other moons. So, our moon's name is officially, in English, 'The Moon', though in Latin it is called 'Luna.' In Greek it is called 'Selene.' The word 'moon' is a generic term for the large natural satellites that orbit their planets and have their own official names.
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