IN THE past two months, four more moons have been discovered orbiting Saturn,
bringing the total to 22—more than any other planet in the Solar
System.
The moons are only 10 to 50 kilometres across. Their orbits have not yet been
calculated, but they are thought to be irregular. This suggests that, like one
of Saturn’s other moons, Phoebe, they were captured by the planet after forming
elsewhere.
Matt Holman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, announced the discovery last week at a meeting of the American
Astronomical Society. He and his colleagues are tracking several…
