15 replies to this topic

[rollomonk]

Saturn now has more known moons than all the other planets in our solar system combined… could this be? Both the New York Times and National Geographic have new articles. See https://www.national...ew-moons-record

[RalphMeisterTigerMan]

WOW! I sure hope that Saturn is charging rent! Gravity costs money! .....wait for it....LOL!

 

Clear skies and keep looking up!

RalphMeisterTigerMan

[scottinash]

NASA posted it as well. https://science.nasa...arge moon count.

[Alex04]

Its surprising that they still havent collided and destroyed each other.

Maybe they can also map their orbits and let us know when any possible collisions can happen so we can go out and take a look.

[Jim Waters]

Thanks for posting this.

[Dave Mitsky]

That's a lotta moons!

https://earthsky.org...ons-discovered/

[12BH7]

Most likely the reason Saturn has rings.

[zoso916]

If there were intelligent life on Saturn would their great accomplishment of the space race be to land on one moon, or all their moons? With so many moons every country on Saturn could claim to be first on the moon. May take awhile for the Saturn equivalent of Micronesia to get there but with so many moons to go around they would make it eventually.

[tcifani]

When I was a kid in the 1980's, I think the moon count was 17. We thought that was a lot.

[NinePlanets]

What's a moon?

The rings are made up of trillions (bigger number?) of little ice chunks. Where is the cutoff that makes it a "moon" rather than an ice chunk?

[RalphMeisterTigerMan]

Could one argue that most of the Solar Systems Moons are mostly captured asteroids? 

 

Case in point: the Earth's only natural Moon was most likely created very early in Earth's history when a "mars" sized object collided with our very young planet. Then after many, many years (so the theory goes) one of the "lumps" coalesed (speelt wrang) into Earth and the other into our Moon.

 

I'm not sure if the above is the correct intrepretation of  a "natural satellite". It just seems to me that most of the small asteroid type moons are exactly that, "captured asteroids". Larger moons like Jupiter's 4 large ones, Saturn's, Uranus's, Neptune's large "round" natural could be like I mentioned above. Most of the others are small rocky bodies.

 

Then you will complain, but RalphMeister, what about the largest asteroid belt asteroids like Ceres, Vesta and any others that are large enough that gravity was able to force them to be round. That, is a good question. Anyone else wish to add there own theories?

 

Clear skies and keep looking up!

RalphMeisterTigerMan

Edited by RalphMeisterTigerMan, 13 March 2025 - 06:28 PM.

[Mark Gingrich]

The planet Saturn gives us a whole new meaning to the term “being mooned”…

[12BH7]

Could one argue that most of the Solar Systems Moons are mostly captured asteroids? 

 

Case in point: the Earth's only natural Moon was most likely created very early in Earth's history when a "mars" sized object collided with our very young planet. Then after many, many years (so the theory goes) one of the "lumps" coalesed (speelt wrang) into Earth and the other into our Moon.

 

I'm not sure if the above is the correct intrepretation of  a "natural satellite". It just seems to me that most of the small asteroid type moons are exactly that, "captured asteroids". Larger moons like Jupiter's 4 large ones, Saturn's, Uranus's, Neptune's large "round" natural could be like I mentioned above. Most of the others are small rocky bodies.

 

Then you will complain, but RalphMeister, what about the largest asteroid belt asteroids like Ceres, Vesta and any others that are large enough that gravity was able to force them to be round. That, is a good question. Anyone else wish to add there own theories?

 

Clear skies and keep looking up!

RalphMeisterTigerMan

Careful with that kind of talk. The Planetary Society could remove our moon as being called a moon. 

[JohnnyMac]

Yep. Dwarf Moons

[RMay]

When I was a kid in the 1980's, I think the moon count was 17. We thought that was a lot.

Growing in the 1960s it was:

Mercury 0
Venus 0
Earth 1
Mars 2
Jupiter 12
Saturn 9
Uranus 5
Neptune 2
Pluto 0

Ron

[JOEinCO]

Makes one wonder how many there are if we've identified 274....