20 new moons discovered grants Saturn new record

Saturn dethroned Jupiter as the "King of the Moons" as astronomers announced that they discovered 20 more moons on October 7.

According to Scott Shappard, an astronomer from the Carnegie Institution of Science who also revealed the discovery, using the largest telescopes in the world helped them observe the smaller moons around the giant planets.

The estimated diameter of these moons is five kilometers, which is so small that it is bordering the detection limit of the Subaru telescope—a facility located at the top of Muana Kea volcano in Hawaii. The discovery took more than a decade because of that.

The 20 dots of light are first observed as early as 2004, but their identities are just confirmed recently. New computer techniques allowed the images previously taken from the telescope to be clearer, making analyzation better.

The moons of Saturn, which is 82 in total, are divided into three groups, which are clustered by the angle at which they orbit the planet. The 17 new retrograde moons, or the moons that orbit the opposite direction of Saturn's rotation, joined the Norse group. It would take more than three years to finish one orbit. 

The Inuit group, on the other hand, is orbiting in the same directions. Two moons joined the group, both of which will take at least two years to finish a cycle.

Gallic groups are the farthest moons, which also take at least three years to finish revolving around the planet. The new member is now the known most distant moon from Saturn.

Scientists think that each of these clusters originally came from a distinct parent body that shattered into smaller pieces caused by the collision.

Sheppard believed that these moons are proof of how chaotic the solar system was in the past. 

Violent collisions are often caused by collisions between two moons or from the outside objects like asteroids or comets. These events are common occurrences in outer space and have also been observed even from the outer moons of Jupiter.

But due to its distance, the new Gallic moon is possibly an outer object pulled by the gravity of Saturn.

"One of the more exciting things about these outer moons is that there's always missions going," Sheppard said.

More study is still recommended to determine what sort of collisions created the clusters and to see the previous condition of Saturn before it happened.

The new moons are still unnamed. With that, Carnegie Institution has launched moon-naming online competition, just like what they did with the 12 recently discovered moons in Jupiter. The mechanics are simple: the names must be from the giants from Norse, Gallic, and Inuit mythology.

People are already sharing their ideas in Twitter, including Fionn, a hunter–warrior from Irish mythology, and Sila, an Inuit god who governs life and breath.

The competition is still ongoing. To join the fun, submit your suggestion by tweeting it with the hashtag #NameSaturnsMoon while tagging @SaturnLunacy.

Saturn is the sixth planet in the solar system, sitting between the enormous Jupiter and the ice planet Uranus. Its notable characteristic is its ring. Saturn is also the home of Enceladus, the moon where scientists believed life exists due to the presence of water.