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Twelve new moons were discovered in orbit around Jupiter, raising to 79 the number of natural satellites known to revolve around the largest planet in our solar system
One of the new moons, tentatively named "Valetudo" for the Roman goddess of health and hygiene and the great-granddaughter of the god Jupiter, is called an eccentric ball because she orbits Jupiter in the opposite direction of the neighboring moons. "
" Valetudo "is like driving the highway on the wrong side of the road, astronomer Scott S. Sheppard, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington and head of the Team of astronomers who made the discovery, told NBC News MACH by e-mail
Astronomers were spying moons in the spring of 2017 using a giant telescope in Chile to search Planet X, a massive, yet undiscovered planet that is supposed to orbit the sun far beyond Pluto. "
Jupiter has just been in the sky near the search for fields where we were looking for extremely solar system objects so far, we have been able to search for new moons around Jupiter while searching for planets on the periphery of our solar system, "Sheppard said in a statement
. with several other telescopes, delighted other astronomers: "I like this result," said Jackie Faherty, astronomer of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was not part of the "astronaut". team. E-mail.
"We have studied this planet as long as we have looked up, and it still surprises us, but it also reminds me that the question of" what is there "is always open to" Tabetha Boyajian, astronomer at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge who was also not part of the team, described the discovery of the new moons as "cool" in an email.
"I I'm not surprised that she's accumulating more moons, "she said of Jupiter, adding that" the study of the dynamic history of such objects can tell us a lot about training. " of the solar system. "It is thought that Valetudo is Jupiter's smallest moon, Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon and the largest in the solar system, has a diameter of about 5,300 kilometers. Valetudo's composition was probably "half ice and half rock", adding that the minuscu the satellite is the "last vestige of a much larger moon that has been ground to the dust of collisions" with other Jovian moons.
Jupiter could still have moons still undiscovered, Sheppard told Nature. But its lunar total already far exceeds that of any other planet – including Saturn, whose 62 confirmed moons make it the second place.
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