Astronomers have discovered 128 new moons of Saturn, bringing the total number to 274. This planet now has almost twice as many moons as all the other planets in the solar system combined, reports The Guardian.
Until recently, Jupiter was considered the leader in the number of moons, but new observations made with the help of the Canada-France Hawaii telescope have revealed a different picture. Scientists used the “shift and addition” method, which allows you to detect faint objects against the background of the starry sky, and confirmed that there are dozens of previously unrecorded moons.
All new objects belong to the class of irregular satellites. They have elongated orbits and small sizes.
Despite the significant expansion of the list of known satellites, scientists believe that they have reached the limits of the capabilities of modern methods. New technologies can also study the distant moons of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune.
