Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

dtm.carnegiescience.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–69 of 69 posts

Re: Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

#61

Post by vibrio »

flattone wrote: post #3
typpo wrote: post #2

Here's a visualization I made of the Saturn system with an option to highlight the newly discovered moons: https://typpo.github.io/spacekit/examples/saturn/index.html Besides the 20 new moons, I find it interesting that there are 8 "lost" moons. These are objects observed as far back as 2004 - but their current locations are unknown.

I am in heaven playing with this. Sorry but this is the end of my comment.

I wanted to say this, but since you did already, I'm going back to playing with the moons...

Re: Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

#62

Post by m0skit0 »

prewett wrote: post #32

We had the Cassini spacecraft in the Saturn system for 10 years, and in the past two years we've found 32 new moons! We've found 67% more moons with earth-based telescopes than we discovered actually being there. Wow, space is big and we know nothing. (Of course, I don't think Cassini was actually looking for new moons on the outskirts, but still, I'm surprised we didn't accidentally find some of these...)

Cassini's instrumentation was focused on studying surfaces, not finding moons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini%E2%80%93Huygens#Instru...

Re: Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

#63

Post by redwall_hp »

dimitar wrote: post #45

Isn't the term moon devalued too much by now? Isn't there terminology to classify these newly found 5km natural satelites differently from the massive moons like ours, Ganymede, Europa and so on? Something like dwarf moons or micromoons?

I propose "mμns."

Re: Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

#64

Post by redwall_hp »

xwdv wrote: post #8

I wish they would open up the naming of at least one moon to whatever the internet decides to come up with, rather than restricting it to the same old boring gods and goddesses convention. That moon would probably become one of the more popular celestial bodies in the solar system based on that alone.

Or we could open up to more deities outside of the roman/greek arena. How about Cthulu or Freya?

Re: Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

#66

Post by Buttons840 »

typpo wrote: post #2

Here's a visualization I made of the Saturn system with an option to highlight the newly discovered moons: https://typpo.github.io/spacekit/examples/saturn/index.html Besides the 20 new moons, I find it interesting that there are 8 "lost" moons. These are objects observed as far back as 2004 - but their current locations are unknown.

I couldn't find any information about the "lost" moons you mentioned. Tell me more. What is the name of one or all of those moons?

Re: Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

#67

Post by Buttons840 »

journalctl wrote: post #15
xwdv wrote: post #8

I wish they would open up the naming of at least one moon to whatever the internet decides to come up with, rather than restricting it to the same old boring gods and goddesses convention. That moon would probably become one of the more popular celestial bodies in the solar system based on that alone.

“Today, class, we’re going to learn about Saturn’s newest moon, whose name the district has forbidden me from actually saying.”

"And tomorrow, we'll be discussing Uranus."

Re: Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

#68

Post by typpo »

Buttons840 wrote: post #66
typpo wrote: post #2

Here's a visualization I made of the Saturn system with an option to highlight the newly discovered moons: https://typpo.github.io/spacekit/examples/saturn/index.html Besides the 20 new moons, I find it interesting that there are 8 "lost" moons. These are objects observed as far back as 2004 - but their current locations are unknown.

I couldn't find any information about the "lost" moons you mentioned. Tell me more. What is the name of one or all of those moons?

The moons are: S/2004 S 7, S/2004 S 12, S/2004 S 13, S/2004 S 17, S/2006 S 1, S/2006 S 3, S/2007 S 2, S/2007 S 3.

There are short Wikipedia articles for each one.

JPL provides orbital elements but presumably they are not quite correct, otherwise we could locate them: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?sat_elem

Re: Twenty New Moons Found Orbiting Saturn

#69

Post by perl4ever »

magduf wrote: post #54
colechristensen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gravitational capture is the only way retrograde orbits could happen - a blob of spinning dust and gas just won't produce moons orbiting in opposite directions. Anything going in the "wrong" direction will be subject to a whole lot of drag forces and lose all of its orbital speed and fall inwards. Retrograde orbits have to happen by grabbing something late or after the formation phase. All of the discovered retrograd…

>Keep in mind all of these new objects are quite small, just a few miles across. About a billion of them could fit inside Saturn's largest moon, Titan (seventeen were discovered). With planets, we started getting too many "planets" when we discovered more and more really tiny ones, so we started coming up with new names for them: "dwarf planet", "Trojan", "asteroid", etc. A small rock in the asteroid belt orbits the…

"should they really all be called "moons"?"

Well, some of them are called "rings"...

Post reply on HN