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Saturn's new moon

Science

Astronomers at the University of Hawaii, US, have found the first new satellite of Saturn in three years. The discovery has been made by the same team that recently announced it had found a clutch of new moons around Jupiter. 

They point out that until now Saturn was the only gas giant planet not to have a new satellite discovery announced in the past year. The latest discovery means there 31 known moons of Saturn. Jupiter has 58. 

The new satellite was discovered on 5 February by Scott Sheppard and David Jewitt, from Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, along with Jan Kleyna, of Cambridge University, UK. Like the new satellites of Jupiter, it was found using the world's biggest telescope/wide-field digital camera combo on the 8.3-metre Subaru Telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The observation was later conformed by the University of Hawaii 2.2-metre telescope.

The moon, designated S 2003/S1, is in an orbit opposite to Saturn's spin, and is probably only about eight kilometre (five miles) in diameter. 

More possible moons

The new moons are classified as irregular because they are far from their parent planet and were most likely captured after the planet formed. 

In contrast, regular moons of the giant planets, which usually have nearly circular equatorial orbits close to the planet, are thought to have formed out of a disc of dust and gas that surrounded each planet as it formed. 

Saturn's only previously known irregular satellite Phoebe was discovered in 1898. Jupiter has nine irregular moons (one of which was discovered last year), while Neptune has two, and Uranus five. 

With these new discoveries, Saturn now has 22 known moons, one more than Uranus. The new moons of Saturn have diameters ranging from 10-50 km (5-30 miles), in line with the sizes of other irregular moons. 

Saturn may have even more moons. Astronomers have found several other objects that are now being tracked to establish their orbits. 

The discovery was made by an international team of astronomers at the Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur; McMaster University, Canada; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, US; and Cornell University, US. 

(From the Net)

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Published on 14th April 2003

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