Saturday, May 3, 2014

How Many Moons Does Saturn Have?

How Many Moons Does Saturn Have?:

A collage of Saturn (bottom left) and some of its moons: Titan, Enceladus, Dione, Rhea and Helene. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

A collage of Saturn (bottom left) and some of its moons: Titan, Enceladus, Dione, Rhea and Helene. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Saturn’s moons have such a variety of environments between them that you’d be forgiven for wanting to spend an entire mission just looking at its satellites. From the orangy, hazy Titan to the icy plumes emanating from Enceladus, studying Saturn’s system gives us plenty of things to think about.

Not only that, the moon discoveries keep on coming. As of April 2014, there are 62 known satellites of Saturn (excluding its spectacular rings, of course). Fifty-three of those worlds are named. While this sounds like a large number of satellites, there’s another planet that has even more — Jupiter, with 67 to its name.

Most of these moons are pretty small ones, just a few miles across, but on the other hand there are larger ones such as the moon Titan. Below are descriptions of some of the more prominent moons.

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Read the rest of How Many Moons Does Saturn Have? (480 words)




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