While Earths one and only moon enthralls everyone on this planet, it cant hold a candle to Saturns 274 moons, 128 of which were recently discovered and recognized by the International Astronomical Union. With this new surge in its moon count, Saturn prevails with the most moons out of any other planet in the Solar System. Astronomers are now wondering, though, how this abundance of moons emerged in the first place.Regular vs. Irregular MoonsAlthough Saturn boasts an impressive amount of moons, they arent quite like the one were used to seeing in our sky every night. The Earths moon falls under the category of regular moons, which are natural satellites that follow a mostly stable, circular orbit around a host planet.The newly discovered moons of Saturn, on the other hand, have all been categorized as irregular (overall, 24 of Saturns moons are regular, while the other 250 are considered irregular).Irregular moons typically follow distant and retrograde (backwards) orbits and have greater inclinations (related to the tilt of an orbit). Another difference is that while regular moons emerged as their host planet was forming, many irregular moons are believed to have been planetesimals (small, early-stage planets) captured by their host planet at the end of its formation. Split From CollisionsA large chunk of Saturns new irregular moons 64 of them were described in a recent paper submitted to the Planetary Science Journal, currently available on the arXiv preprint server.In this paper, researchers propose that these small irregular moons likely originated early in Saturns history from multiple independent collisions, second-generation collisions between fragments of an initial collision, or a mixture of the two scenarios.The moons, observed from 2019 to 2021 at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, were placed into subgroups within two categories of Saturnian irregulars; the Inuit group contains the Kiviuq and Siarnaq subgroups, and the Norse group contains the Phoebe, Mundilfari, and Kari subgroups.The researchers suggest that a recent collision, that may have occurred at least 100 million years ago, may have created the Mundilfari subgroup, a hypothesis that was previously advanced in a 2021 study. This collision would have involved a larger irregular moon that, when impacted, split into numerous fragments.Read More: Saturn's Rings Formed Long After the PlanetThe Outer Planets' MoonsResearchers are uncertain that any additional moons will be found orbiting Saturn in the future, although Jupiter might make up some ground it currently has 95 recognized moons, and this number is expected to rise as more observations are made. However, Jupiters moons will likely not surpass Saturns moons according to researchers.Back in 2024, astronomers announced one new moon for Uranus (S/2023 U1) and two new moons for Neptune (S/2002 N5 and S/2021 N1). The new moons, found using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, are the faintest to ever be observed with a ground-based telescope.Similar to Saturns new moons, the irregular moons of Uranus and Neptune exhibiting eccentric and distant orbits were possibly part of larger parent moons that experienced collisions in the past, producing groupings of fragments. Astronomers believe there are smaller fragments in these groupings that have yet to be detected, but current ground-based telescopes cannot spot them. More details on the outer planets' moons will require space missions to get a closer look. While all eyes are on Mars and the Earth's own moon, plans for missions that will explore the outer Solar System are fast-approaching; most notably, the Dragonfly spacecraft, the key piece to an upcoming mission headed by NASA, is planned to launch by 2028 for a 2034 landing on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:NASA. Moons: Facts Carnegie Science. New moons of Uranus and Neptune announcedNASA. DragonflyJack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and previously interned at Recycling Today magazine.