Three new moons have been discovered in the Solar System, one orbiting Uranus and two around Neptune: the official announcement was made by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union.
The moons have a diameter between 8 and 23 kilometers, with orbital periods between 2 and 27 years and are the dimest ever observed by ground-based telescopes so far.
It had been twenty years since natural satellites of the two planets had been discovered and the discovery was due to the two twin Magellan telescopes at the Las Campanas observatory in Chile and the Subaru located in Hawaii.
The confirmation came from the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in Chile.
"Special image processing was needed to reveal such faint objects," said Scott Sheppard, of the Carnegie Institute in Washington, confirming the discovery of these three small stars, observed by a network of telescopes that analyzed their orbits for long periods.
The moons of Uranus thus become 28 and those of Neptune 16.
The new moons do not yet have a name.
That of Uranus currently has the acronym S/2023 U1, has a diameter of 8 kilometers and takes 680 Earth days to complete an orbit around its planet.
According to IAU conventions, the new moon of Uranus, like the other 27, will soon be named after a character from William Shakespeare's works.
The two moons of Neptune are indicated with the acronyms S/2002 N5 and S/2021 N1 and for them the name of one of the Nereids, the sea nymphs of Greek mythology, is expected.
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