Astronomers are adding three newly discovered moons to our solar system’s growing list of known celestial bodies. A team of international researchers spotted an additional moon circling Uranus’ for the first time in almost two decades and two new moons orbiting the planet Neptune. The discoveries were announced on February 23 by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, a scientific organization who is responsible for designating our solar system’s comets, planets, and moons.
[Related: Neptune’s faint rings glimmer in new James Webb Space Telescope image.]
“The three newly discovered moons are the faintest ever found around these two ice giant planets using ground-based telescopes,” Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer with the Carnegie Institution for Science who collaborated on the moons’ discovery, said in a statement. “It took special image processing to reveal such faint objects.”
Uranus’ new moon will have a dramatic name
The planet Uranus now has 28 known moons. The new moon is temporarily named S/2023 U1, but it will eventually be named after a character from a Shakespearean play. Uranus moons including Puck, Titania, and Oberon reference A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while the moon Miranda is a reference to The Tempest, both plays written by the English playwright.
At only five miles wide, S/2023 U1 is likely Uranus’ smallest known moon. It takes the tiny satellite 680 days to orbit the planet. Shepherd first spotted S/2023 U1 on November 4, 2023, using the Magellan telescopes at Carnegie Science’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Followup observations were conducted one month later. Marina Brozovic and Bob Jacobson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory then helped Shepherd determine a possible moon orbit.
New Neptunian moons–one bright, one faint
With this new discovery, the planet Neptune now has 16 known satellites. The brighter of Neptune’s two newly discovered moons is…
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