Scientists need your help to name the newly discovered moons of Jupiter

It's now your chance to name a moon, but do not expect too much – Moony McMoonFace is not in the running. Researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science have put in place fairly strict rules for their competition, asking the public for help in naming the newly discovered moons of Jupiter.

Carnegie scientists first announced the accidental discovery of 12 moons in orbit around Jupiter in July 2018. A team of astronomers was looking for a possible "Planet X" or "Planet" 9 "beyond the orbit of Pluto when the moons were found. Scott Sheppard, of Carnegie, said 11 of the outer moons were "normal", but one of them is a "weird" one. The discovery brought to 79 the total number of moons of Jupiter – the largest number of planets in our solar system. Its biggest and most famous moons are named Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Researchers are now asking for help to name five of the twelve moons, but there are strict guidelines for the approval of the International Astronomical Union. Names must be 16 characters or less, can not be offensive, or be too similar to the names of existing moons or asteroids. Moons can not be named after a living person or anything that involves political, military or religious actors.

There are still more rules. The moons must bear the name of characters from Roman or Greek mythology, descendants or lovers of Jupiter (Roman) or Zeus (Greek). They both had a lot of lovers and descendants, so there are many names to choose from.

Three of the moons are retrograde, which means that they gravitate around the gas giant's rotation. These moons must have names ending in the letter "e". The two moons in a prograde orbit must have names ending in the letter "a". One of the moons is a "mirror ball" as it gravitates around the retrograde moons – but in a prograde direction. The unusual moon has already been named Valetudo.

If you have a name idea, you can suggest it to the account. @JupiterLunacy on Twitter, explaining why the name was chosen with a tweet or a short video with the hashtag #NameJupitersMoons. The contest ends on April 15, 2019.