How many moons does Saturn have? What are they called? When was it discovered?

Saturn first discovered 10 moons, then 17, then 40, and finally 20. Well, there are 82 of them, and only 79 of them were found on Jupiter.

Saturn's largest moon is called Titan.

Titan, a moon orbiting Saturn, is the largest of Saturn's moons and the second largest in the solar system. It was discovered by Dutch physicist, astronomer and mathematician Christian Huygens on March 25, 1655, the first moon to be discovered in the solar system after Jupiter's Galilean moon.

Because it is the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere, it is highly suspected of life, and scientists have speculated that methane in the atmosphere may be the basis for life. Titan can be seen as a time machine that helps us understand the earliest days of the Earth and unravel the mystery of how life came to be.

Satellite Introduction:

Huygens simply referred to the moon he had discovered, and Giovanni Domenico Cassini named the four moons Louis in honor of King Louis XIV. It is customary for astronomers to number these five moons, and the others are called Huygens or Saturn's sixth moon. Titan, Titan, the English name of Titan, and seven other moons of Saturn, known at the time, come from Sir John Herschel.

John Herschel, in his 1847 book The Results of Astronomical Observations at the Cape of Good Hope, named the new moon Titan, a mythological term for Kronos (his Roman counterpart, Saturn) and his brothers and sisters. Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the second largest moon in the solar system, larger than planet Mercury, and only smaller in the solar system than Jupiter's largest moon, Europa.

Saturn has many moons and is the largest in the solar systemEight planetsOnce thought to be the largest, due to its large enough rings, people continue to increase the exploration of it, and recently astronomers have made a new discovery, Saturn 20 new moons? What is the largest satellite called? Below byKnowledge of horoscopesLet's reveal this new discovery!

Saturn 20 new moons.

According to Western media, the International Astronomical Union recently announced that a research team has discovered 20 new moons orbiting Saturn, bringing the number of known moons of Saturn to at least 81. Prior to this, Jupiter was the planet with the most known moons (79) in the solar system. But now, Saturn has taken that top spot.

According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo on October 7, the newly discovered satellites are about 5 kilometers in diameter. According to the International Astronomical Union's Asteroid Observatory, 17 of these satellites are retrograde, that is, they are orbiting in the opposite direction of Saturn's rotation, and the other three are anterograde.

Of the 20 new moons, the two closest to Saturn will take about two years to orbit Saturn, while the farthest one will take about three years to orbit Saturn, the report said.

The research team is led by astronomer Scott S. Shepard of the Carnegie Endowment for Science. "Studying the orbits of these moons not only reveals their origins, but also provides important information about the surroundings of Saturn's formative period," Shepard said in a statement. ”

According to the report, the 20 new satellites were discovered using the Subaru Telescope at the Mauna Kea Volcano Observatory in Hawaii.

"We're using some of the world's largest telescopes to complete an inventory of the small moons around the giant planet," Shepard said. He highlighted the "critical" role of these moons because they play an important role in helping researchers determine the formation and evolution of the planets in the solar system.

What is Saturn's largest moon called.

Titan is Saturn's largest moon and the second largest moon in the solar system, larger than the planet Mercury (although not as massive as Mercury), and only smaller in the solar system than Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede. But recent observations have also shown that the dense atmosphere may have led to an overestimation of Titan's diameter, and that, like many other moons, Titan is larger in mass and volume than asteroid 134340 (formerly Pluto).

On March 25, 1655, Dutch astronomer Huygens stumbled upon a moon of Saturn while observing Saturn with a homemade meter-long refracting telescope. It is Titan, the most watched by astronomers, and the first moon of Saturn discovered by mankind. The satellite was named Titan.

Titan is the goddess of Greek mythology and the wife of Cronus, the second god of Saturn.

Titan has long been considered the king of the solar system's moons. The Pioneer probe took five high-resolution images at a distance of 350,000 kilometres, with Upper Titan showing a beautiful orange color. The data measured by Voyager rewrote Titan's original diameter of 5,800 kilometers, but it was actually 4,828 kilometers, forcing it to give the crown to Jupiter's moon Ganymede, relegating to second place.

Scientists have always been interested in Titan because it is the only one of the moons with an atmosphere. The main component of the atmosphere is nitrogen, which accounts for about 98%, methane accounts for 1%, and the rest is hydrocarbons, etc. The thickness of the atmosphere is about 2,700 km.

Titan's surface temperature is low, between -190 and -210, with beautiful oceans of liquid nitrogen. These conditions are similar to those of the early origins of life on Earth.

Although the surface of Titan cannot be seen, the information provided by the Voyager probe shows that Titan is another strange world in the solar system, with dark and cold surfaces, oceans of liquid nitrogen, dark red skies, and occasional sprinkled nitrogen rain mixed with hydrocarbons, etc., and there may be organic matter accumulation on the surface. These are ideal places for humans to understand the origin of life and the various chemical reactions.

With an average distance of about 1.22 million kilometers from Saturn, Titan orbits Saturn almost in a circular orbit. Why Titan is able to orbit Saturn at an equidistant distance is still a mystery to be solved. It has been more than 300 years since Titan was discovered, but human understanding of it is far from enough.