UH astronomy team spots new, tiny moon of Saturn

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau

HILO, Hawai'i — University of Hawai'i astronomers atop Mauna Kea have discovered another moon circling Saturn, bringing the total number of known satellites orbiting the planet to 31.

The team that made the discovery — Scott Sheppard and David Jewitt of the UH Institute for Astronomy and Jan Kleyna of Cambridge University — just last Friday announced they had found six more moons orbiting Jupiter, bringing that planet's total to 58.

The Saturn discovery was made Feb. 5 using the world's largest telescope and wide-field digital camera combination at the 8.3-meter optical-infrared Subaru Telescope atop Mauna Kea. The telescope is operated by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.

The observation was confirmed by UH's 2.2-meter telescope.

Scientists believe tht the moon, dubbed S/2003-S1, is about 5 miles in diameter and orbits opposite Saturn's rotation. The planet's largest moon, Titan, is about 3,000 miles in diameter.

This marks the first time in almost three years that a previously unknown moon was located revolving around Saturn, the second largest planet in the solar system.