After the discovery of twelve new celestial bodies, the planet Jupiter has the most moons in the solar system. But Saturn could follow suit.
Frankfurt – Jupiter is not only the largest planet in our solar system – it has recently also had the most moons. As the subject portal Sky and Telescope reported, twelve new moons of Jupiter have just been confirmed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Minor Planet Center (MPC). With that, the gas giant Jupiter now has 92 known moons and overtakes Saturn, which last held the Solar System record with 83 confirmed moons.
All of the newly discovered moons orbiting the planet Jupiter are small and located far from their planet. Only five of the moons are said to be more than eight kilometers in diameter. Each of the new moons takes more than 340 days to orbit Jupiter, How fr.de reported.
Twelve new Jupiter moons: all small and distant
Nine of the 12 new moons are so far from Jupiter that they take more than 550 days to orbit their planet once. In addition, these nine moons have so-called retrograde orbits – they orbit the gas giant in the opposite direction to its rotation. This leads experts to suspect that Jupiter may have captured these small moons with its powerful gravitational pull.
The discovery of new moons of Jupiter or Saturn will be announced by the Minor Planet Center – but it may take some time from observation to publication. Among other things, an object must be observed for a full orbit to show that it is indeed orbiting the planet. Jupiter’s outer moons take about two years to orbit the planet, so it takes a corresponding amount of time to confirm them. The observations that have now led to the confirmation of the twelve new Jupiter moons were already made in the years 2021 and 2022.
New moons of Jupiter probably don’t get their own names
For naming, the new moons of Jupiter are after a report by Sky and Telescope too small. Researchers believe the mini-moons were formed when larger moons collided with unknown objects millions of years ago and broke into smaller pieces.
Mercury | 0 |
Venus | 0 |
Earth | 1 |
Mars | 2 |
Neptune | 14 |
Uranus | 27 |
Saturn | 83 |
Jupiter | 92 |
The planet Jupiter has four particularly well-known moons: yes, Europe, Ganymede and Callisto are known as the “Galilean Moons” because they were discovered by Galileo Galilei. You can already see them with small binoculars around the planet Jupiter. More Jupiter moons are likely to come in the future. So far, finding new moons around the gas giant has been difficult because the planet itself is very bright and can outshine possible small moons with its light. But the observation instruments are being refined more and more, so that more moons could be discovered in the future.
This also applies to Saturn, the number two in the moon ranking of the solar system: So far there are 83 Saturn moons – among them Enceladus, mimas and titanium – known. But researchers also know of countless boulders up to a size of three kilometers that orbit Saturn and have not yet been observed in detail. Among them could be one or the other Saturn moon. (tab)
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