The Discovery of Saturn’s 20 New Moons

By Kevin Zamora


Recently, scientists discovered 20 new moons around the second biggest planet in our solar system, Saturn, which brings the total up to 82 moons, according to the Los Angeles Times. This is very a great discovery for scientists because they will be able to better understand how moons form.
 

So let me explain how moons form for those who don’t know. There are many ways a moon can form. Sometimes two large pieces of rock, ice, and other space materials can collide together. The debris of these collisions can clump together to form a moon. And other times, according to National Geographic, “moons are asteroids captured into orbit by a larger body’s gravity.” (Side note, scientists actually want the public to help name these new moons which honestly seems really cool. Here a link https://carnegiescience.edu/NameSaturnsMoons) These moons could also create an environment for new species to form. For example, Mars, our fourth planet in the solar system, can possibly support life. According to Space, “Four billion years ago, the Martian surface was apparently quite habitable, featuring rivers, lakes and even a deep ocean. Indeed, some astrobiologists view ancient Mars as an even better cradle for life than Earth was, and they suspect that life on our planet may have come here long ago aboard Mars rocks blasted into space by a powerful impact.”

Furthermore, moons like Europa (One of Jupiter’s moons) and Enceladus (A Saturn moon) have been shown to have something special that can support life. Enceladus is made of ice and under that ice is water like an ocean and Europa has a thin oxygen atmosphere. Though, there will have to be many studies to be certain if these new moons can support life. Now what do I think about these new moons? Do I like this discovery scientist have made? Well yes I do. Some people might just not care and, say “Yeah, whatever,'' though that’s their opinion. This discovery leaves me asking so many unanswered questions like “can these moons can really support life” and “how can we send people there the fastest” or “will more moons be able to form?”

I wanted to know what other people think about this topic so I asked a couple of students at HPCMS. 6th grader James said, “Good!” and another 6th grader, Samuel, said “It’s cool!”

So what did you learn about this discovery? I’ll give you a second to think about. Ok ready? Probably not, I only gave you a second. But I’ll tell you one thing for sure, what you learned in this article was the discovery of 20 new moons, moons that might support life and tells us young scientists how moons can form. Hope you enjoyed my very first article here at the HPCMS Chronicle!