New Moon Found In Saturn's G-Ring

caffiend666 writes "Scientists have announced a new moon has been found hidden in the G Ring of Saturn. The discovery was announced Tuesday in a notice by the International Astronomical Union. This is one of over five dozen moons, and is only a third of a mile wide. No word yet on a name for the new moon; I vote Cowboy Neal."

Comments

G-ring?

[Foo2rama]

I know there is a funny g ring comment in here somewhere!

Re:G-ring?

[Onyma]

You mean that little tiny Spot in the G area? Is it that much of a surprise it took these men so long to find it?

Re:G-ring?

[Feminist-Mom]

Seriously, I wonder if this is related to predictions from recent work in celestial mechanics, like by people like mathematicians Richard Montgomery. There is a revolution(no pun intended) in that area now.

Re:G-ring?

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote Pam:

"That's what she said! THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"

Re:G-ring?

[dotancohen]

You mean that little tiny Spot in the G area? Is it that much of a surprise it took these men so long to find it?

It's a third of a mile wide. Maybe they're not into BBW's.

Re:G-ring?

[Architect_sasyr]

You're only saying that because you can't find it!

A third of a mile makes it a moon?

[CronoCloud]

Can you really call an object a third of a mile wide a "moon" rather than "just a rocky piece of junk that orbits Saturn, like a whole bunch of other stuff."

Re:A third of a mile makes it a moon?

[russlar]

Can you really call an object a third of a mile wide a "moon" rather than "just a rocky piece of junk that orbits Saturn, like a whole bunch of other stuff."

The Astronomical community is feeling guilty about Pluto.

Re:A third of a mile makes it a moon?

[Chris Burke]

Well since the majority of that "other stuff" is dust or ice crystals, some being maybe as large as a few meters, and the rings themselves are only about 10m thick, then yeah something a third of a mile wide stands out pretty significantly. They're sometimes called "moonlets" to denote the fact that they are, by moon standards, pretty small.

Re:A third of a mile makes it a moon?

[dotancohen]

Can you really call an object a third of a mile wide a "moon" rather than "just a rocky piece of junk that orbits Saturn, like a whole bunch of other stuff."

There's about 150 of those in Saturn's system alone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_satellite

However, nobody can find a good definition of a moon, just like the definition of the planet was hard to come by. The "cleared it's orbit" clause won't work for moons because they are the sources of the gas giant's rings (and gravitationally stabilize them), and the "gravitationally round" bit won't work either because it would eliminate lots of objects that we would like to call moons, such as the two rocks orbiting Mars. Come up with a good definition that does not rely on any arbitrary numbers (like size, mass, etc), and I'll submit it for approval.

Re:A third of a mile makes it a moon?

[dotancohen]

It doesn't scale to other systems. Jupiter has a moon larger in volume than Mercury, for instance.

Re:A third of a mile makes it a moon?

[cbiltcliffe]

So you use a percentage size of the parent body.

That way, Jupiter can have a moon the size of Mars, and Mercury still can't have a moon bigger than itself.

Re:A third of a mile makes it a moon?

[rnturn]

``Pluto was one of the first big finds for American Astronomers, and many thing that its classification as a planet (and the continued uproar over its declassification) is just an American power play.''

Oh I think you're a little too anxious to blame on some jingoistic power play.

Actually, we're just pissed off that that mnemonic phrase about ``Mister Victor'' we all learned in grade school is obsolete if Pluto isn't a planet.

Scientist finds spot in G-Ring

[himthatwas]

girlfriend is appreciative for the effort but politely suggests he keep looking.