Cassini spots two new Saturn moons

Saturn's tally of known moons now stands at 33. The two new moons are located between the orbits of moons Mimas and Enceladus.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spied two new little moons around satellite-rich Saturn, the space agency said.

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Saturn's tally of known moons now stands at 33.

The images were taken by Cassini on June 1 from 16 million kilometres out, as it approached the ringed planet. The spacecraft entered orbit around Saturn on June 30.

The two newly spotted, faint moons are about 3.2 kilometres across, and 193,080 kilometres and 210,800 kilometres respectively from Saturn's centre. That's considerably smaller than the moons with 19.3 kilometres diameter previously discovered in Saturn's orbit.

They are located between the orbits of moons Mimas and Enceladus, a surprise to scientists who thought such tiny satellites would have been shattered long ago in collisions with comets.

Researchers say they will be on the lookout for even more Saturn moons, and will seek close-ups of the ones just found.

"Hopefully, we haven't seen the last of them," said Carolyn Porco, Cassini's imaging team leader in Boulder, Colorado.