Saturn Runs Rings Round Other Planets as New Discoveries Give It Total of 274 Moons

Astronomers have discovered 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, giving it an insurmountable lead in the running tally of moons in the solar system.

- Hannah Devlin

Until recently, the "moon king" title was held by Jupiter, but Saturn now has a total of 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets combined.

The team behind the discoveries had previously identified 62 Saturnian moons using the Canada France Hawaii telescope and, having seen faint hints that there were more out there, made further observations in 2023. "Sure enough, we found 128 new moons," said the lead researcher, Dr Edward Ashton, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

"Based on our projections, I don't think Jupiter will ever catch up." There were 95 moons of Jupiter with confirmed orbits as of 5 February 2024.

The moons have been formally recognised by the International Astronomical Union this week and have been assigned strings of numbers and letters for now. They will eventually be given names based on Gallic, Norse and Canadian Inuit gods, in keeping with convention for Saturn's moons.