We hear a lot about exoplanet discoveries these days. Just 20 years ago we had barely any idea about the composition of other star systems, and yet today we know of at least 4000, and steadily counting.
By closely watching stars for periodic dimming, we can pinpoint where planets must be blocking the light as they pass by. Sometimes tiny wobbles in periodic motion, such as radial velocity, can indicate that there are gravitic interactions with other worlds also.
With a lot of probabilistic math we can then figure out whether that's likely to be a gas giant, or a rocky body. Spectroscopic analysis can tell us whether there is hydrogen, ammonia, or water vapour. Intriguingly, a few of these worlds seem like good candidates for having an Earth-like atmosphere, possibly even life as well.
We are now learning how to apply similar techniques to monitoring changes in the reflected brightness (albedo) of nearby planets in our own solar system, along with the wobbles of moons.
Scott Sheppard at the Carnegie Institute of Science has discovered 20(!) new moons of Saturn, that we previously had no idea about. Dr Sheppard previously discovered 5 new moons of Jupiter, but (from now on) Saturn officially holds the record for the most moons that we know of, 82 to Jupiter's 79. That may not be surprising as it's ring system is composed of many small moons that broke apart, and it contains millions of little moonlets within them.
The 20 moons need names, and they are asking the public for suggestions. Perhaps you will have the honour of naming one!
There's a catch though – the names for the moons must come from Inuit, Norse, or Gallic mythology, to match with other nearby moons in their respective orbits. Thus, I'm afraid that MoonyMcMoonface is sadly not acceptable in this case...