Scientists spy Saturn's 60th moon
Saturn's 60th moon, labelled in red
Also In The News
|
The UK owes its heritage as an island nation to a "catastrophic megaflood" that separated what is now mainland Britain from France hundreds of thousands of years ago. |  |
Friday, 20, Jul 2007 05:06
Scientists have discovered yet another moon orbiting Saturn, bringing the planet's total number of moons to 60.
The discovery was made using the Cassini spacecraft's wide-angle camera, where it appeared as a very faint dot in the images of Saturn's ring system.
When the Cassini mission first launched in 1997 astronomers knew of just 18 moons orbiting Saturn.
The new moon, temporarily dubbed 'Frank', is about 1.2 miles wide and, like other bodies near it, is made mostly of ice and rock.
Scientists said today that the discovery is important for a number of reasons. The first is that if the location of bodies is known then mission specialists can ensure Cassini does not fly into them.
It will also help provide a better understanding about how Saturn's ring system and its billions of parts work and interact with each other.
Finally, a discovery of a moon is, according to Nasa, important as with this new knowledge Cassini mission planners can plan to perform future experiments.
Carl Murray, the Cassini imaging team scientist who first spotted the moon, commented: "Each and every new discovery adds another piece to the puzzle and becomes another new world to explore."