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This latest discovery brings the total number of Jovian moons to 79, making Jupiter the planet with the largest number of moons in the solar system.
This last discovery brings to 79 the total number of Jovian moons. planet with the largest number of moons in the solar system.
Planet Nine's research reveals all sorts of strange discoveries, as does the mysterious rocky object in the Kuiper Belt Inquisitr reported earlier this year. In this particular case, astronomers in search of the elusive Planet X beyond Pluto eventually found a series of additional moons around Jupiter, Science Daily
Last spring, Scientists roamed the sky with Blanco. The 4-meter telescope of the Inter-American Observatory of Cerro Tololo in Chile and Jupiter arose at their sight, said team leader Scott Sheppard, an astronomer from the Carnegie Institution for Science
"Jupiter was right in the sky near the We searched for objects far removed from the Solar System, so we were able to search for new moons around Jupiter while searching for planets on the periphery of our Solar System," said Sheppard.
The sightings revealed a dozen previously unknown moons surrounding the gaseous giant.These found objects are tiny, one to four kilometers in diameter, and were officially confirmed as moons about a year after their discovery, once the astronomers following their orbit were sure of what they had found. 19659003] "It takes several observations to confirm that an object always really around Jupiter. So, the whole process took a year, "said Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union, who calculated the moon's orbits based on observations from the team's telescope [19659006]. , making Jupiter the planet with the largest number of moons in the solar system.
Jovian Moons Prograde
Two of the newly discovered Jovian moons belong to an internal group called prograde moons, which revolve. in the same direction as Jupiter, explains a press release by the Carnegie Institution for Science
These prograde moons are a little further than the four great Galilean moons of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, notes Gizmodo and are considered the surviving fragments of a larger moon that was torn apart by collisions with other celestial bodies, such as asteroids, comets and even similar moons, in the distant past of the planet. 19659003] Up to now, there were only four prograde moons known orbiting Jupiter. These two new prograde moons, which take a little less than a year to complete a complete orbit around the gaseous giant, bring the number to six.
Retrograde Jovian Moons
Nine of the recent spotted moons fall into a separate category called retrograde moons. Previously considered to contain only 61 objects, this group circles the planet in the opposite direction of Jupiter's rotation and is even further away than the prograde moons.
It is believed that the retrograde moons of Jupiter were destroyed. violent collisions. This is because these outer moons are grouped into three orbital groups, which point to three distinct sources of origin.
The nine retrograde moons recently found in the orbit of Jupiter circumnavigate the planet in about two years. According to Gizmodo two of them had already been announced by the team in 2017, when the world discovered that Jupiter had 69 moons
The Oddball & # 39; # 39;
The remaining Jovian moon has been described as quirky, and here is why.
"Our other discovery is a real eccentric ball and has an orbit like no other known Jovian moon," Sheppard said. "It's probably the smallest known moon of Jupiter, having less than one kilometer in diameter."
This curious new moon turns in the same direction as the prograde and Galilean moons, following the rotation of Jupiter, but so far from the planet as it travels in the opposite direction as the rest of the neighborhood, this tiny moon is particularly vulnerable to collisions and has a good chance of being obliterated in the future by a "
" It's like driving a car on the wrong side of the highway, "Sheppard says in a communicated.
Nicknamed Valetudo, after the goddess of health and hygiene, great-granddaughter of the Roman. Jupiter god, this particular object revolves around the planet in a year and a half and seems to have an intriguing story.
Unlike other Jovian moons that separated shortly after the formation of the planet, Va Letudo is thought to be the remnant of a foreign celestial body. This strange moon could come from a lost comet trapped by the gravitational pull of Jupiter and destroyed long ago by collisions with the retrograde moons of the planet.
"It shows just how chaotic our solar system was in the past. These outer moons of Jupiter are remnants of chaos, "said Sheppard.
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