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There is traffic around Jupiter. A new chance discovery confirms what scientists have been suspecting for a year: twelve new moons have been discovered around the planet, bringing to 79 the known number
of its satellites, a record. According to scientists, one of them has unusual characteristics …
A dozen new moons of Jupiter discovered, including one "oddball" via @carnegiescience https://t.co/ baA7nO3Y65
– Mr Trujillo (@BioNerdTru) July 17, 2018
Researcher Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science has called one of these new moons a "strange ball" because of its small size. It measures a little less than one kilometer in diameter, making it "probably" the smallest satellite of Jupiter.
An unusual orbit
Astronomers have proposed to call it "Valetudo", from name of the great-granddaughter of the Roman god Jupiter, goddess of health and hygiene
What's so special about it? Its orbit is "different from that of all other known Jupiterian moons". It takes about a year and a half for this "strange ball" to circle Jupiter, whose inclined orbit intersects those of a cloud of other moons moving in the opposite direction of the rotation of Jupiter. Valetudo turns in the same sense as Jupiter
All these moons could be fragments resulting from collisions between larger cosmic bodies. "It's an unstable situation," Scott Sheppard commented. "Frontal collisions can quickly dislocate satellites and reduce them to dust."
On the Pluto Path
The discovery surprised scientists, who were not looking for new Jupiter satellites. The latter simply appeared in the field of their telescope as they searched for planets beyond Pluto. The new moons were observed for the first time in 2017
from a Chile-based telescope operated by the US National Astronomical Observatory
It took a year to confirm the trajectory of their orbits with several other telescopes. [19659007] >> To read also: Jupiter. Jets of water vapor revive the hope of finding extra-terrestrial life
>> See also: Nice. A researcher studies the winds of Jupiter "to go back to the origin of the solar system"
>> To read also: Jupiter. The "big red spot" could disappear within ten to twenty years
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