The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has officially recognised 128 new moons for the gas giant planet Saturn, taking the number of moons of the planet to 274. The number of Saturn’s moons increased after the IAU recognised the discoveries from a team of astronomers led by Edward Ashton at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan.
Saturn now officially has the largest number of moons of the eight planets in our solar system. Jupiter, with 95 moons, has the second-highest number of moons in the solar system.
The 128 new moons were discovered by stacking images from the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope. Some of Saturn’s other moons were discovered by space voyages of the Voyager 1 and Cassini spacecraft. when it passed by Saturn.
There is no precise definition of the moon by the International Astronomical Union. According to the IAU, a solid object or a natural satellite in orbit around a planet, a dwarf planet, a minor planet, or a trans neptunian object (lying beyond the orbit of Neptune) is called a moon (with a small m) in public usage.
The natural satellite that orbits around the earth is called the Moon(with capital M).
The newly discovered moons are all small, and they are only a few kilometres across.
Regular moons are formed at the same time as the planets were formed. Many scientists believe that the moon was formed out of gas and dust that circulated around the planets in the early solar system.
The irregular moons were formed later on when the strong gravitational pull of the planets captured the solid natural objects.
The regular moon revolves around its planets in a predictable circular orbit, while the irregular
Moons normally orbit in big ovals further away from planets and at a range of angles.
Out of 274 moons, Saturn has 24 regular moons and 250 irregular moons.