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Astronomers recently announced the discovery of 20 new moons in orbit around Saturn, giving the planet a total of 82. USA TODAY

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Forget Jupiter. Saturn is now the solar system’s moon king.

Astronomers Monday announced the discovery of 20 new moons in orbit around Saturn, giving the planet a total of 82. That tops Jupiter and its 79 moons. 

The finding was announced Monday by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.

The Carnegie Institution for Science’s Scott Sheppard, who led the discovery team, said 100 even tinier moons may be orbiting Saturn, still waiting to be found.

“Using some of the largest telescopes in the world, we are now completing the inventory of small moons around the giant planets,” said Sheppard. “They play a crucial role in helping us determine how our solar system’s planets formed and evolved.” 

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Each of the newly discovered moons is about 3 miles in diameter. Seventeen of them orbit the planet backwards, or in a retrograde direction, meaning their movement is opposite of the planet’s rotation around its axis.

The other three moons orbit in the same direction as Saturn rotates.

Sheppard and his team used a telescope in Hawaii to spot Saturn’s 20 new moons over the past few months.

The moons don’t have names yet, and scientists are asking for the public’s help to name the objects.

Last year, Sheppard discovered 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter and Carnegie hosted an online contest to name five of them.

“I was so thrilled with the amount of public engagement over the Jupiter moon-naming contest that we’ve decided to do another one to name these newly discovered Saturnian moons,” Sheppard said.

“This time, the moons must be named after giants from Norse, Gallic or Inuit mythology,” he said.

Go to the Twitter page @SaturnLunacy to submit your ideas for names. The contest opens Monday and closes in December.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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