Posted on 02/10/2023 11:20:26 AM PST by Red Badger
With the confirmation of a dozen new moons in Jupiter’s orbit, the biggest planet in the Solar System is suddenly the neighborhood big dog when it comes to moon collection.
With the advent of these 12 previously undiscovered moons, the gas giant now has 92 known orbiting entities, surpassing Saturn’s amazing collection of 83.
Although scientists face a significant challenge in locating these tiny celestial entities, both planets are really expected to be joined by many more moons. The intense glare emitted by Jupiter further complicates things, and any that are tiny enough to have escaped discovery up to now may probably only be spotted with highly powerful telescopes that don’t have a broad enough field of vision to take in the whole Jovian system.
Dr. Scott Sheppard has spent the last several years following the orbits of the 12 new moons, which have recently been published by the Minor Planet Center, unfazed by these challenges (MPC). Sheppard also made a prior discovery of Jovian moons, which was released back in 2018.
Nine of the twelve new satellites are found in the far-off moon clusters that orbit Jupiter retrogradely, or in the opposite direction of the inner moons. These tiny backtracking objects all take at least 550 days to complete one orbit despite their small size.
The remaining three moons were found among the prograde satellite clusters that are situated between the massive, nearby Galilean moons and the distant retrograde objects. One is in the Carpo group, which is around 17 million kilometers (10.6 million miles) from Jupiter, while the other two are in the Himalia group, which circles the planet at a distance of between 11 and 12 million kilometers (6.8 to 7.5 million miles).
The orbits of each of Jupiter’s new 12 accessories take more than 340 days to complete, and none of them are large enough to get a given name. These tiny moons are supposed to be the fragments of much bigger satellites that broke apart after collision with another object millions of years ago.
Although scientists are unable to pinpoint what caused these old moons to collide, Sheppard’s 2018 discovery provided a hint in the form of an uncommon moon known as Valetudo. Valetudo defies the Jovian tendency, moving retrograde even though its orbit overlaps that of the far-off retrograde moons.
Valetudo is thought by some astronomers to be the remains of a bigger object that once tore through Jupiter’s retrograde moon clusters like a wrecking ball. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that swimming upstream improves your chances of running into someone.
what I don’t understand is why all those rocks around saturn don’t combine into a single mass? What’s keeping them apart?
One could be Elon's Tesla.
That’s no moon!
P
M1A2
Who knows how many moons Saturn has in all? 20 of the 83 were found in one year, 2019. They all have their own orbits and there is a lot of space out there so they are unlikely to collide. Many of Jupiter's smaller moons are thought to be captured asteroids and the same may be true of some of Saturn's.
Venus is almost as large as the earth and has no satellites. It's unfair for the gas giants to hog most of the moons.
So...
All this time Jupiter has been mooning us and we didn’t even realize it?
That’s why I’m here! I have a special fondness for rapidly deteriorating threads.
What else is out there they are not telling us about?.........................🤔
That was a decent movie. Not great, but decent.
L
Good film!
With the advent of these 12 previously undiscovered moons ...
—
they aren’t moons ...
What’s really unfair is the Earth has the largest moon in the solar system.
Venus hardest hit.
In other words, scientists, whatever the field, are NOT all knowing. And in the science field, a lot of what they write/say is fraudulent. I read about 50%. Made up, exaggerated, etc. They are not gods.
So, I guess ‘settled science’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
The moon is not even the largest satellite relative to its planet--that honor goes to Charon, the largest of Pluto's five known satellites.
We just haven't discovered them all yet.
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