Saturn’s little system hit a big milestone this week with the announcement of its 60th moon. This new moon joins the crop of new satellites turned up by researchers poring through data sent back by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.
The newly discovered moon first appeared as a faint dot in a series of images captured by Cassini on May 30. The discoverers, from Queen Mary, University of London, then went back through the vast library of Cassini images, verifying that they had found a new object.
Codenamed “Frank” for now, the new moon is only about 2 km (1.2 miles) across, and it’s mostly made of ice and rock. It’s located in between the orbits of Methone and Pallene.
This is the fifth new moon discovered by the Cassini imaging team.
Original Source: Cassini-Huygens News Release
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