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Did You Know That Jupiter Has 92 Moons?

BY Getrude Mathayo · February 7, 2023 12:02 pm

KEY POINTS

Scientists have found 83 moons to date around the ringed gas giant, the second-largest planet in the solar system. However, astronomers have also found tons of rocks down to about 2 miles (3 kilometers) wide around Saturn without yet tracking the objects precisely, according to Sky and Telescope.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The Dark Energy Camera can survey the sky for faint objects. The orbits of the 12 hitherto undiscovered moons of Jupiter have been published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, according to a new report from Sky and Telescope.

Jupiter is not just the largest and most massive planet in the solar system, now, the gas giant also boasts the largest number of moons orbiting it after scientists discovered another 12 moons, bringing the behemoth’s total up to 92.

The discovery was made during observations by astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science and his team. They used the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii in September 2021 and the Dark Energy Camera located on the Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile in August 2022.

The Dark Energy Camera can survey the sky for faint objects. The orbits of the 12 hitherto undiscovered moons of Jupiter have been published by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, according to a new report from Sky and Telescope.

The dozen new moons represent a 15 percent increase in the planet’s known moons. With these new discoveries, Jupiter seizes the record for “solar system planet with most moons” from the previous record holder, Saturn.

Scientists have found 83 moons to date around the ringed gas giant, the second-largest planet in the solar system. However, astronomers have also found tons of rocks down to about 2 miles (3 kilometers) wide around Saturn without yet tracking the objects precisely, according to Sky and Telescope

As instruments become capable of studying these smaller moons, Jupiter may have to relinquish its new title back to Saturn. Jupiter and its natural satellites were in alignment with more distant targets that Sheppard and his team have been seeking in the Kuiper Belt, a ring of icy objects circling the sun that’s located past the orbit of Neptune on the edge of the solar system.

“We have been surveying for new moons around Jupiter serendipitously while our main survey is looking for planets in the outer solar system beyond Pluto,” Sheppard said.

The team could tell the difference between Jupiter and the objects around it versus the distant solar system objects because any objects around Jupiter would be moving at the same rate as the gas giant. Distant solar system objects can’t move as quickly as objects moving with Jupiter

Follow-up observations for the 12 new moons took about a year to confirm, and the team used the Magellan Telescope in Chile to conduct that work. None of the moons have names yet since their discovery was just announced, but the Minor Planet Center will assign each one a number in the coming months.

The nine particularly distant moons also have retrograde orbits, meaning that they circle the gas giant in the opposite direction of its rotation; the inner Jovian moons, in contrast, have “prograde” orbits in the same direction as the planet’s rotation.

The new moons’ retrograde orbits imply that Jupiter’s immense gravitational influence may have captured these moons, with the smaller ones possibly the remains of larger bodies broken apart by collisions.

In April, the European Space Agency is sending a spacecraft to Jupiter to study the planet and some of its biggest, icy moons. And next year, NASA will launch the Europa Clipper to explore Jupiter’s moon of the same name, which could harbor an ocean beneath its frozen crust.

Sheppard – who discovered a slew of moons around Saturn a few years ago and has taken part in 70 moon discoveries so far around Jupiter – expects to keep adding to the lunar tally of both gas giants.

Jupiter and Saturn are loaded with small moons, believed to be fragments of once bigger moons that collided with one another or with comets or asteroids, Sheppard said. The same goes for Uranus and Neptune, but they’re so distant that it makes moon-spotting even harder.

For the record, Uranus has 27 confirmed moons, Neptune 14, Mars two, and Earth one. Venus and Mercury come up empty. Jupiter’s newly discovered moons have yet to be named. Sheppard said only half of them are big enough – at least 1 mile or so – to warrant a name

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