Saturn, the sixth planet from the Sun, is famous for its magnificent ring system. However, the planet also possesses a vast and diverse collection of natural satellites, or moons. As of today, Saturn has 146 confirmed moons, including 62 that have been officially named.
The Moon has a long history of being smacked by large rocks. Its pock-marked, cratered surface is evidence of that. Scientists expect that, as part of those impacts, some debris would be scattered into space - and that we should be able to track it down. But so far, there have been startlingly few discoveries of these Lunar-origin Asteroids (LOAs) despite their theoretical abundance. A new paper from Yixuan Wu and their colleagues at Tsinghua University explains why - and how the Vera Rubin Observatory might help with finding them.
