Posted on 05/16/2002 3:41:07 PM PDT by grimalkin
— WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jupiter has 11 more moons than astronomers once thought, bringing the known total for the giant planet to 39, the most in our solar system, scientists reported on Thursday.
The newly discovered moons -- or satellites as astronomers call them -- are small, far from the planet and have eccentric orbits, but they still count, researchers said in a statement.
The new satellites were detected last December by astronomers at the University of Hawaii, using the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope and one of the largest digital imaging cameras in the world, the scientists said.
Digital images were processed with high-speed computers, and likely candidates were watched in the next months to confirm their orbits and to reject asteroids masquerading as moons.
All 11 new moons are considered irregular satellites. They all have retrograde orbits, meaning they go around Jupiter in the opposite direction to the planet's rotation.
They have long, elliptical orbits, which suggest they were captured by Jupiter when the big planet was young, perhaps in the first million years of the solar system's existence.
They are all quite small, with diameters between 1.2 miles and 2.5 miles. Nothing is known about what they are made of, how dense they are or what their surfaces are like, but scientists presume they are asteroid-like space rocks.
Among Jupiter's 39 known satellites, 31 are irregulars. The eight regular satellites consist of four large moons and four smaller ones.
Jupiter's nearest rival for having the largest number of known satellites is Saturn, with 30.
I should have mentioned that the email will be "suitable for framing." Maybe a photo of the toe named after the contributor would be a nice touch too, send digitally along with the official email. Thanks for encouraging me to improve the offer.
No problem. Have you considered marketing toe-related items to your previous customers, to create a more perpetual business model? I envision sales of "toe-jam" made from the deposits between your carefully-marketed toes, as well as "toe-nail clippings" from each individual toe. This could create an ongoing income stream to sustain operations after the "last toe" name has been successfully marketed, Beyond that, you could look into tie-ins with other marketers, such as sock companies.
I think, if you really, really work at it, you might just get a ...... foot-hold on the market, but you'll have to "toe-the-line" if you are going to succeed. But be careful; one mistake, and you'll have shot yourself in the foot, which means you'll likely have even less merchandise than you started with.
Smuckers is going to be in big trouble.
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