Astronomers have discovered three new moons of Uranus and Neptune

They may have been captured on the planet in the past. Astronomers have discovered two new moons near Neptune and one new moon near Uranus. According to the Carnegie Institution’s website, the objects found range in size from 8 to 23 kilometers and are on long, slender, inclined orbits, meaning they may have been captured by a former gravitational planet. Currently, the leader among the moons of the solar system is Saturn, which has 118 private objects. In second place is Jupiter with 92 moons, followed by ice giants Uranus (27 moons) and Neptune (14 moons). A team of astronomers led by Scott S. Shepard of the Carnegie Institution, David Thoren of the University of Hawaii, and Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University reports the discovery of two new moons of Neptune and one new moon of Uranus. did. S/2023 U1 was first discovered by the Magellan telescope on November 4, 2023. Later, this Uranus satellite was discovered not only from photographs taken from the Subaru telescope, but also from archival photographs taken from the telescope. It is 4 kilometers long and orbits the Earth once in 680 days. In the future, the satellites will be named after characters from Shakespeare’s plays. Neptune’s moons S/2002 N5 and S/2021 N1 were first discovered by the Magellan and Subaru telescopes in September 2021, and were also observed by the Gemini Observatory and VLT telescope, respectively. S/2002 N5 and S/2021 N1 have lengths of 23 kilometers and 14 kilometers, respectively, and orbital periods of 9 and 27 years, respectively. They were given their own name in honor of the Nereids of ancient Greek mythology. All new moons of Uranus and Neptune have long and tilted orbits, suggesting that they were captured by the planet’s gravity either during or after formation. It is also believed that active outer moon groups are forming around Uranus and Neptune, similar to the groups around Jupiter and Saturn that can result from the destruction of large moons. Using this method, it is confirmed that the orbits of the detected satellites are similar to some already known satellites of Uranus and Neptune.

source: https://carnegiescience.edu/new-moons-uranus-and-neptune-announced