Introduction

Researchers have found three new moons in the planetary group, including two around Neptune and the littlest moon of Uranus.

Details

According to media reports, Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, discovered these three moons using the Magellan telescopes installed at the Las Campanas Observatory.

Sheppard stated that the moons discovered around these two planets are the faintest moons found so far with the help of ground-based telescopes. He mentioned that special image processing is required to reveal such faint objects. For this discovery, exposure of each moon for every five minutes was required over several hours.

Challenges and Insights

It remains challenging for astronomers to estimate the total number of moons around Neptune and Uranus compared to other planets closer to Earth, such as Jupiter with almost 79 moons, and Saturn with 82 moons.

While the moons of Uranus and Neptune are larger than those of other planets, ranging from 8 to 14 kilometers, much information about these planets is still scarce. This is because multiple flybys have been conducted to Jupiter and Saturn by spacecraft, whereas Uranus and Neptune have been visited only once each, by NASA's Voyager 2 probe in 1986 and 1989, respectively.