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Saturn's New Moons Named
sebFlyte writes "The BBC is reporting that three new moons found orbiting Saturn at the end of last year have been named. 'Two moons detected in August have been given the names Methone and Pallene, while another found in October has been provisionally named Polydeuces.' Polydeuces is also reported as being a very strange object-- a trojan moon. It sits in a spot near a larger moon where the gravitational pull of the other moon (Dione here) and the planet cancel each other out."
Because we're more than likely to get into pissing contests over who or what to name the planets after. I certainly wouldn't like to have to visit Planet Nixon or the moon Roosevelt.
why does the porridge bird lay his eggs in the air?
Apparently a lot of astronomers didn't "pay attention" in high school either; if you search the Harvard ADS database, you will find plenty of references to planetary moons other than our Moon. (Of coures, the majority of them are to our Moon.)
No, for a sufficently large mass ratio (greater than about 30:1) and provided you're not creating a resonance in the libration frequencies, they are stable by the usual meaning of the term in physics.
As far as I can see from the article and from the IAU website, the International Astronomical Union hasn't approved these names. By common agreement in the astronomical community, they have the final word on approving names. So until they meet and approve this, all that is being reported is that the Cassini team is *suggesting* names for the moons *to* the IAU. The IAU has the right to shoot down their suggestins. (I'm a bit skeptical of Polydeuces being accepted since it doesn't fit the usual scheme. But what do I know?)
In addition to what others have said, Saturn has another fun problem with locating moons: some of them are embedded in the ring system. The rings are bright. It's hard to see a small moon in there, unless you get close up and can resolve the gaps the moons clear out (and the moons within them). Or you could wait for a ring-plane crossing, but that's still not a sure-fire method.
Also, it should be noted that people only started doing CCD-based searches about 7 or 8 years ago. It's sort of a case where astronomers got whizzo new technology, and then forgot that there were things close to home to look for because we'd stopped looking years ago. (Poor telescopes, film, and what with having spacecraft fly by... is it entirely shocking that people didn't think to do telescopic surveys?)