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Two New Saturnian Moons

Mixel writes "NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting saturn since the 30th of June has uncovered two previously unknown bodies. 'The moons are approximately 3 kilometers (2 miles) and 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) across -- smaller than the city of Boulder, Colorado.' The Huygens probe will be deployed to the large (bigger than Mercury!) yet mysterious moon, Titan, in December."

4 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Can these really be called moons? by F13 · · Score: 5, Informative
    How about natural satellite

  2. A couple of definitions by cy_a253 · · Score: 5, Informative

    A satellite is any object that orbits a planet, regardless of mass.

    A moon is any natural object that orbits a planet, again regardless of mass. (so probes and debris don't qualify)

    A planet is an object massive enough to become spherical under its own gravitationnal field, that orbits a star. An asteroid is any rocky object that orbits a star and doesn't qualify as a planet.

    A moon doesn't have to be spherical, so that's why the two irregular moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos (captured asteroids), are still called moons. The rings of saturn are made up of millions of small "moons", but they are (rightfully so) considered a single entity.

  3. Re:But where did the RING SPOKES go? by blincoln · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is this guy onto something big, or is he delusional?

    If you read more than a few paragraphs of Hoagland's work, it becomes pretty obvious that the latter is the case.

    Hoagland is the one who is still obsessed with the "face on Mars," interprets JPEG image artifacts as proof of aliens, and so on.

    --
    "...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
  4. What is a Moon? by jebiester · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a very interesting article at space.com entitled 'What is a Moon?'.