By Ron Cowen
The catalog of moons orbiting the outer planets has grown dramatically since the late 1990s. Large arrays of sensitive, electronic detectors have allowed astronomers for the first time to rapidly survey large areas of the sky, yielding a bonanza of tiny moons orbiting Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.
Although recent findings have raised the retinue of Jupiter’s known moons to 28 (SN: 1/13/01, p. 24), Saturn continues to lead the pack. A team led by Brett Gladman of the Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur in Nice, France, had previously found six small moons of Saturn (SN: 12/9/00, p. 376; 11/4/00, p. 298), bringing the planet’s count to 24. As of February, the team had found six more Saturn moons, upping the count to 30.