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\n Uranus\u2019s new moon, S\/2025 U1, was spotted using the James Webb Space Telescope<\/p>\n NASA\/ESA\/CSA\/STScI\/M. El Moutamid (SwRI)\/M. Hedman (University of Idaho)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n This year, astronomers discovered more than 100 previously unknown moons in our own solar system. There may be many more yet to be discovered, and cataloguing them could help us better understand how planets form.<\/p>\n In March,\u00a0Edward Ashton at Academia Sinica in Taiwan and his colleagues discovered 128 moons around Saturn, bringing the planet\u2019s total to 274. The team gathered hours\u2019 worth of images from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii and stacked them on top of each other to spot objects that are otherwise too dim to see.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ashton\u2019s team now has the right to name the new moons, although Saturn\u2019s moons are so numerous that many are no longer given informal names.<\/p>\n In August, a small and dim new moon was found in orbit around Uranus, bringing the planet\u2019s total to 29. Maryame El Moutamid at Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and her colleagues made the discovery using 10 long-exposure infrared images taken by NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope.<\/p>\n The team remains tight-lipped on potential names for the moon, so it still has the provisional name S\/2025 U1. In time, it will probably be named along the same lines as 27 of Uranus\u2019s moons, which take a character\u2019s name from one of Shakespeare\u2019s plays. This convention dates back to the discovery of the planet\u2019s first two moons, Titania and Oberon, in 1787.<\/p>\n Nigel Mason at the University of Kent, UK, says there are likely to be many more moons to be discovered in our solar system, particularly around Neptune and Uranus, although the largest ones have probably already been mapped.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody always likes to find new moons and everybody always likes to think about what they\u2019re going to call them,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s an exciting moment. It\u2019s a bit of a legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n The more we catalogue and measure our local moons, the more we can find out about how they are created and use that information to update our models of planet formation, says Mason.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are there so many? What is it that triggered [planets] to make 40, 50, 60 of such varying shapes and sizes? \u2029That\u2019s why they\u2019re exciting,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just stamp collecting. It really is \u2018wow\u2019. Really surprisingly, the whole planet-formation process is not as well as understood as we think.\u201d<\/p>\n Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n