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What the hell? Saturn now has a total of 274 moons. That’s so many that they may have to relax the naming conventions because there aren’t enough Norse deities to cover them all.

Comments  6

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Colter Mccorkindale

“I don’t think there’s a proper definition for what is classed as a moon. There should be" Umm, yeah, because Saturn technically has billions of tiny moons arranged in a large ring around it.

Pete Ashton Edited

I was going to say "the rings are mostly ice so wouldn't count as moons" but then there's nothing in the Moon entry on Wikipedia that explicitly says what they can be made of.

It's quite exciting how uncertain I suddenly am about all this.

Z
Zach Zaletel Edited

I mean, isn’t one of the Jovian moons (Ganymede or Io?) likely a big ball of water?

ETA - Enceladus at Saturn https://www.space.com/saturn-moon-enceladus-water-plume-james-webb-space-telescope

Pete Ashton

@Zach - My mind is truly blown. And "Enceladus Water Torus" is the name of my new band.

D
David W

Why can’t they just make up some new Norse deities? Problem solved

E
enbeecee

Or Star Trek/Star Wars characters…

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