Jupiter and Saturn have even more moons than I thought

[Maxmars]

It appears we are getting a better idea of the object orbiting the two gas giants... and the number is increasing.
 

A multitude of new moons have made their presence known around Jupiter and Saturn, bringing their population of moons to 101 and 285, respectively.

The new discoveries also bring the total number of known moons orbiting planets and dwarf planets in the solar system to 442 — and that's not including the many moonlets accompanying various asteroids or small Kuiper Belt objects.

When you include the remainder of the solar system, including the asteroid belt(s) and comets... I wonder how many there are?

We do have the future to look forward to...

While Jupiter is lagging behind Saturn in the moon stakes by quite a large number, Europa Clipper and the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) missions, currently heading to Jupiter, could redress the balance when they arrive in the Jovian system in the early 2030s.

To summarize, the current tally is that for the planets, Earth has one moon, Mars has two, Jupiter has 101, Saturn has 285, Uranus has 28 and Neptune has 16 while Venus and Mercury have none. For the dwarf planets, Pluto has five, Eris has one, Makemake has one, Haumea has two and Ceres has none.

Keep counting the stars.....  

Source article.

[J DOH]

[Good Bacteria]

[Video: https://youtu.be/i7eqjiRRIqg?si=Woyeuco7amj9MXXm]

[quintessentone]

Just one of the questions that my mind conjures up when pondering the cosmos and ancient collisions.

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"Saturn's 128 newly discovered moons, announced in 2025, are classified as irregular moons with highly inclined, eccentric, and often retrograde orbits.  Their orbital characteristics and clustering into groups, particularly the Mundilfari subgroup, provide strong evidence that they are fragments from a major collision between larger moons or captured bodies within the last 100 million years. 

Scientists, including researchers from the University of British Columbia and Academia Sinica, theorize that these moons are remnants of one or more violent collisions that shattered originally captured moons or asteroids.  The high number of small moons relative to larger ones suggests a recent event, as older collisions would have led to further fragmentation and a different size distribution. "

"Further discoveries, such as 11 new moons in 2026, continue to support this collisional origin theory.  These findings indicate that Saturn's moon system has undergone significant dynamical upheaval, with collisions shaping its current population of over 285 confirmed moons." (LLM)

[MONAD Ops]

Excellent, 1 can imagine the secrets present on or within some of those "special" moons