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Another 128 moons

15 March 2025
Astronomy

William also sent in a link from National Geographic magazine. The same story is

at https://www.livescience.com/space/planets/128-new-moons-discovered-orbiting-saturn-nearly-doubling-the-ringed-planets-total … Saturn already had 146 moons. Another 128 means it now has 274 of them. The National Geographic link has some stunning images. However, these moons are not what we normally regard as moons. They are lumpy objects, each just a few miles across, and are on what are known as ‘wild orbits’ – irregular orbits. They are orbiting in retrograde – in the opposite direction to Saturn’s rotation. They are also outside Saturn’s rings.

It appears Saturn has more moons than all the other planets put together. Saturn is also over a billion kilometres from Earth so it is surprising the new moons can even be detected. If they are part and parcel of a former collision event there may be a lot of much smaller moons, or pieces of space debris, orbiting around Saturn, yet to be found.

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