Discovery of New Moons in Our Solar System

• 06 Mar 2024

Recently, three new moons have been discovered in our solar system, with Uranus gaining one and Neptune acquiring two.

Key Points

• Faintest Moons Ever Found: Ground-based telescopes revealed the faint moons around Uranus and Neptune, requiring special image processing.
• Discovery Process: Involved taking dozens of exposures over several nights with telescopes, stacking photos to reveal the stationary moons against the moving stars.
• Time Intensive Project: It took about 15 hours of telescope time to fully determine the orbit for each new moon.
• Neptunian Moons: Neptune gains two moons, one 14 miles and the other 9 miles in diameter, with orbits of nine years and nearly 27 years, respectively.
• Significance: These moons offer insights into the early solar system formation and could reveal more about planetary capture and collisions with asteroids or comets.