Astronomers have made a groundbreaking discovery using some of the world’s largest telescopes, including the Subaru Telescope. They have found three new natural satellites orbiting the outermost planets in our solar system – one around Uranus and two around Neptune. The faintest moon ever discovered by ground-based telescopes was initially detected by the Subaru Telescope.
The new moon around Uranus, S/2023 U1, increases the total number of known moons orbiting the ice giant planet to 28. Initially detected using the Magellan Telescope in Chile in 2023, it was subsequently confirmed in earlier images captured by the Subaru Telescope and Magellan Telescope in 2021. With a diameter of just 8 kilometers, it is likely the smallest among Uranus’ moons. It completes one orbit around the planet in 680 days.
The brighter of the two newfound Neptunian moons (S/2002 N5) is about 23 kilometers in size and takes almost 9 years to orbit the ice giant. It was first spotted in 2021, and the orbit was confirmed in 2022 and 2023 by the Magellan Telescope.
“Once S/2002 N5’s orbit around Neptune was determined using the 2021, 2022, and 2023 observations, it was traced back to an object that was spotted near Neptune in 2002 but lost before it could be confirmed as orbiting the planet,” Sheppard explains.
The other new Neptunian moon (S/2021 N1) is about 14 kilometers in size with an orbit of almost 27 years. This extremely faint object was first spotted in 2021 by the Subaru Telescope, and the orbit was confirmed through special observing time at the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Gemini Telescope in Hawai’i. The discovery of these two new moons brings Neptune’s known moon total to 16.
2024-03-06 18:41:04
Post from phys.org