Saturn is known for its iconic rings, but it should also probably be known for its moons. The ringed world was already the record holder for the most natural satellites of any planet in the Solar System at 146, but now experts have discovered dozens more.
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00:00Saturn is known for its iconic rings, but it should probably also be known for its moons.
00:09The ringed world was already the record holder for the most natural satellites of any planet
00:13in the solar system at 146.
00:15However, now astronomers say we can add 128 new ones to its orbiting repertoire.
00:20For anyone doing the math, that's an astronomical 274 moons in total orbiting Saturn.
00:26So how did they go unnoticed for so long?
00:28Well, there are a couple of reasons.
00:29First, they are all irregular in that they are further away from Saturn than expected
00:33and orbit in non-conventional ways.
00:35The other reason is that many of the moons are likely a result of a collision which occurred
00:39around 100 million years ago, meaning Saturn has a wild mix of prograde and retrograde
00:43orbiting moons, meaning there's a mix of moons traveling both with and against its orbit.
00:48Still, many of the recently discovered orbiters are extremely tiny, though there's no size
00:52threshold a moon has to be to be considered moon worthy.
00:55Some of them are even less than 2.5 miles wide, revealing just how much better astronomy
01:00tools are becoming as Saturn resides some 985 million miles from Earth.