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By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON, July 17 – Astronomers announced Tuesday the discovery of 10 more moons from Jupiter, bringing to 79 the number known to revolve around the giant gas planet, including a "bad driver "which seems destined to crush on other moons sharing its orbital route.
All newly identified moons are relatively small. While Jupiter, the fifth planet of the Sun, has large moons such as Ganymede – the largest solar system with a diameter of 3,273 miles (5.268 km) – the news goes about six tenths of a mile (1 km ) 2.5 miles (4 km). This is tiny compared to the Jupiter diameter of 88,846 miles (142,984 km).
A research team led by astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington identified 12 small Jovian moons, including the 10 described on Tuesday. Sheppard said that these moons were probably objects that formed near Jupiter during the early days of the solar system and were "captured" by the gravitational pull of the planet. "Jupiter is like a big vacuum because it's so massive." "These objects started in orbit around Jupiter, instead of falling in. So we think they're intermediate between rocky asteroids and icy comets, so they're probably half ice and half stone." [19659002ThemostinterestingofthenewmoonsisValetudo(pronouncedval-eh-TOO-doh)namedafterthegreat-granddaughteroftheancientRomangodJupiterthegoddessofhealthandhygieneValetudorevolvesaroundJupiterinthesamedirectionastheplanetbutabunchofothersmallmoonssharethesameorbitaltrajectorywhentravelingintheoppositedirection
"Valetudo goes in the wrong direction, so it is very likely to collide with these other objects.Jupiter's known moons are the most numerous of all the planets in the solar system, followed by the 62 identified around the planet. Gaseous giant Saturn.Sheppard says that Jupiter and Saturn can have a similar number of moons, and that some of the smaller ones of Saturn are not yet detected.
A moon is defined as any object, regardless of its size, which orbits around a planet.Only the two most secret planets of the solar system, Mercury and Venus, have none.of 79 moons of Jupiter, 26 remain nameless, including nine of 10 news
(Will Dunham report, edited by Bernadette Baum)
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