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2024-11-11

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Astronomers discover 128 new moons orbiting Saturn (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Summary

Astronomers have discovered 128 new moons around Saturn, bringing its total to 274, far surpassing Jupiter’s 95.

The moons, formally recognized by the International Astronomical Union, are small, irregularly shaped objects detected using the “shift and stack” technique.

Scientists believe they are remnants of larger celestial bodies shattered by collisions within the last 100 million years.

The discovery sheds light on the early solar system’s chaotic history and could help explain the origins of Saturn’s rings. Meanwhile, ESA’s Hera spacecraft will conduct a close flyby of Mars’s moon Deimos.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

It basically needs critical mass.

The monsters were humans trying to engineer with thr molecule, that sample of protomolecule was not bound to become the ring.

On Eros, it was let loose specifically so that it could get enough mass to do what it was going to do. Think of it like a transistor- a few transistors can get you a NAND gate, but a LOT of them can give you a processor.

Once it had the critical mass and went to Venus, it was big enough that it could assimilate whatever it wanted into itself and gain the necessary mass to form the ring.