News – Daredevil's bizarre & # 39; from 12 newly discovered Jupiter moons

It's easy to understand why these 12 new additions had been missed up to here. Each of them is only one to three kilometers wide and so would be very difficult to spot with most telescopes.

Using the 4 meter Blanco telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American in Chile, with its Jupiter camera was just in the sky near the search fields where we were looking for extremely distant solar system objects, so we were able to search for new moons around Jupiter while "Sheppard said in a Carnegie press release

. This interest in finding new moons around Jupiter was not an impulsive decision of Sheppard. He is a veteran.

From the entire 79 Moon Jupiter collection, Sheppard was involved in the discovery of 54 of them, including most of the known retrograde moons. He also participated in the discovery of 25 known Saturn moons, two moons around Uranus and a Neptune in orbit, two comets and a dozen minor planets, of which 39; best-known object of the solar system – VP113 2012 (nicknamed Biden

The New Discoveries

The moons of Jupiter are arranged according to a specific pattern that the giant planet has developed over time.

The Four small "irregular interiors", named Métis, Adrastea, are the closest to the planet, Amalthea and Thebe.Then the four great Galilean moons – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – are easily visible from Earth, even with binoculars or a small telescope.

Beyond that, there is a group known as "prograde" moons., irregular satellites, all traveling around Jupiter in the same direction as the planet (in the opposite direction needles of one shows, in the view below.) Two of the newly discovered moons were found among these prograde moons, and take a little less than a year to circle their orbits.

This capture shows the prograde moons of Jupiter, including the last two discoveries. These moons orbit counterclockwise in the view above. Credit: Carnegie Institution of Science

Outside the orbits of prograde moons lies the largest group, the retrograde moons, which revolve around Jupiter in the opposite direction to the spin of the planet. Nine of the new discoveries are in this group.

The orbits of the newly discovered 9 retrograde moons of Jupiter are shown here. These moons orbit clockwise, in the view above. Credit: Carnegie Institution of Science

Valetudo, the "Crazy"

The latest of the team's findings is the strangest of all.

"Our other discovery is a real ball and has an orbit like no other known Jovian moon," says Sheppard. "It's probably the smallest known moon of Jupiter, having less than 15 years of experience. one kilometer in diameter. "

Valetudo, as the team calls this weird moon, bears the name of the Roman goddess of health, cleanliness and hygiene.He orbits around Jupiter in and between the retrograde moons, however, it follows a very risky prograde orbit as it does.

The orbit of & # 39; Oddball & # 39; Valetudo, shown in green, compared to retrograde moons. As the retrograde moons turn clockwise, Valetudo moves counterclockwise. Credit: Carnegie Institution of Science

With the orbit of the moon at an angle to the rest, it means that Valetudo does not take the riskiest route around Jupiter, but that it plunges on the orbits of the retrograde moons, inviting a collision at a certain point.

"It's an unstable situation," Sheppard said. "The frontal collisions would break down quickly and reduce the objects to dust."

According to the team, these moons, and in particular Valetudo, probably did not form at the same time as Jupiter, but are probably the tiny ones. Remains of larger objects that have suffered many collisions while they revolved around the gaseous giant.

Given their small size, if the moons had existed in the early days of the solar system, the gas and dust that surrounded the Sun at that time They exerted strong pressure on them, causing them to lose the speed and sink in Jupiter. As they are still there, it means that they formed after the solar wind swept away gas and dust.

A hard-won discovery

Overall, this discovery was difficult, but very rewarding. 19659006] It was necessary to use one of the most advanced new astronomical cameras, connected to a powerful telescope that takes advantage of the clean and dry air of northern Chile. Follow-up observations were made from four other telescopes in Chile, Arizona and Hawaii to confirm the findings. Accurate calculations have also been made by scientists from the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, using initial observations, not only to confirm that these asteroids were crossing their field of vision but also to ensure that astronomers It also shows that while we continue to look in the universe for new discoveries, we have certainly not finished discovering new objects, in our own "backyard".

Sources: Carnegie Science Institution | Dark Energy Survey | Carnegie Science / Scott S. Sheppard

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