Saturn again became the planet with the largest number of satellites
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Scientists have discovered another 62 new moons of Saturn, and this has returned it to the status of the planet with the most of them. A few months ago, the leader in the solar system was the gas giant Jupiter, The Guardian reports. The total number of Saturn’s moons is 145, and Jupiter’s is 95. This has been officially determined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). “Saturn has not only nearly doubled its number of moons, but it now has more moons than all the other planets in the Solar System combined,” said University of British Columbia astronomer Brett Gladman. Saturn. Photo: NASA/Institute of Space Science/Reuters New satellites were temporarily assigned strings of numbers and letters. Over time, they will be named after Gallic, Scandinavian and Canadian Inuit gods. The moons are mostly clustered and may be the remnants of large moons that crashed while orbiting Saturn. New moons of Saturn have recently been discovered that are irregularly shaped and resemble potatoes, the New York Times reports. They orbit far from the planet at a distance of 10 to 29 million km, compared to larger objects. Planet Saturn. Photo: NASA “These satellites are key to understanding some important questions about the Solar System. They have imprints of events that have taken place in the Solar System before,” said Bonnie, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and deputy scientist for the upcoming Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter. Buratti. Scientists assume that in the future Jupiter will be able to temporarily overtake Saturn again and become the leader in the number of satellites. We will remind, scientists with the help of the Webb telescope managed to predict that the inner rings of Saturn will disappear forever after some time. Read also: A photographer from the USA created the clearest image of Jupiter. PHOTO
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