New Moon For Saturn

[astroron]

The latest Moon for Saturn http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6908190.stm

[ballaratdragons]

:eyepop: 60 Moons and possibly rising!!!!

Amazing stuff!!!

[Gargoyle_Steve]

Jupiter is still ahead moon-wise, but for how much longer? Could Saturn overtake Jupe - quite possible with Cassini looking around in such detail.

[iceman]

Exactly right Steve, I'd imagine if they let an orbiter stay around Jupiter for a year or two they'd find many more small moons as well.

I'm not sure if there's any plans for a future Jupiter orbiter, perhaps they know enough about the giant planet already. I can only dream - imagine the images they'd send back of the planet and the galilean moons. The pass-by images from New Horizons were spectacular.

Cassini has been a great mission, certainly a lot to learn out there.

[astroron]

Wouldn't you like a seat on the next orbiter Mike:eyepop: but as long as they gave you a return ticket:) :)

[little col]

could it be possible that saturn is creating its own asteroid belt system , with over 60 moons shurely this could be a possibility for the future:shrug:

[OneOfOne]

Eventually they will face the same problems with the definition of what constitutes a moon as the recent definition of what is a planet. How small does a moon have to be before it is considered nothing more than a rock or debris?

If they discovered a rock the size of a basketball orbiting Saturn, is it a moon? How about "dwarf moon"? What if it is the size of bus? If something the size of a bus were considered to be a moon, would that have made Skylab a temporary moon of the earth? If one of these smaller moons were to break up, which one retains the original name, the larger? Does the other bit get an "a" designation or another name? What if the two bits are bigger than some of the other small moons, would that warrant a completely new name for the smaller fragment? Hmm....

[iceman]

The definition of a moon is simply something orbiting another body (and not orbiting the sun), so I don't think it matters how big or small it is.

There are asteroids that have "moons" orbiting them.

[higginsdj]

Sooner or later they will have to make that call. Saturn's rings are made up of multi trillions of moons by your definition (ie anything) and I certainly wouldn't like the job of identifying or catagorising (or naming) all of them!

Most asteroid moons appear to be of a reasonable size to date (most in the 1km+ category though the NEO ones are much smaller). (http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/astro/asteroidmoons.html#2)

Cheers

[iceman]

yeh you're right David - I was going to reply to my own post this morning when I was thinking about Saturn's rings..

I guess they'll have to classify it as orbiting another body but not within a ring system, maybe.

I'm sure there's thousands of small rocks orbiting Saturn and Jupiter that aren't in the ring plane but aren't classifieds as moons, either.

[higginsdj]

LOL - whats the difference between a Rock and a Boulder?

[GTB_an_Owl]

you can throw a rock

geoff

[radu5er]

I once visited Boulder...nice place:whistle:

Rick

[OneOfOne]

Maybe "a Moon" is something that orbits "a planet" or "dwarf planet" that has "cleared its orbit" to quote another famous definition!

But then again, what do you call something that orbits "a moon" without ending up with a circular reference! Sorry, I'm a computer programmer and I hate getting a circular reference...