A new discovery makes Jupiter the planet with the most moons in the solar system.
With 83 moons, Saturn was the champion among the planets of the solar system in terms of the number of these objects until the current discovery. But now this gas giant has pushed Jupiter, which has 92 confirmed moons to date, off its base. This is because the 80 known moons are now joined by 12 more previously unknown objects orbiting the largest planet in the solar system, writes Sky and Telescope.
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The Minor Planets Center (USA), which systematizes data on all small objects in the solar system, including satellites, comets and dwarf planets, announced that scientists have discovered 12 new moons of Jupiter. The most distant new moon, designated S/2003 J10, completes its orbit around the planet in 18 years.
Jupiter has 92 moons so far, more than Saturn, which has 83 confirmed moons, scientists say. But in the latter it can be found that there are more such objects, because many very small celestial bodies that are likely to be discovered in the near future revolve around it.
Scientists believe that if you find all moons smaller than 3 km around Saturn, then most likely this planet has the most moons in the solar system. But so far Jupiter is in the first place.
All of Jupiter’s newly discovered moons are very small and very far in orbit around the planet. Nine of the new moons are part of a group of 71 very distant moons that take more than 550 days to make a full revolution around the planet.
Scientists believe that in the distant past, Jupiter attracted these previously unknown objects, 5 of which were greater than 8 km, due to gravity. They most likely appeared as a result of collisions with larger objects.
Three of the newly discovered moons are among Jupiter’s largest moons, namely the gallium moons, and currently 13 moons located between more distant objects. We remind you that the gallium satellites are called the four large groups of celestial bodies – Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. These are the largest moons of Jupiter with diameters ranging from 3.6 to 5.2 thousand km, and most of this planet’s moons are 1 to 5 km in size.
Outside of the Galilean moons, scientists distinguish two moon groups of Jupiter:
- The Himalia group, named after the largest satellite in this group, and includes 8 satellites located at a distance of 11 to 12 million km from the planet;
- The Carpo group, named after the larger of the two objects in this group, is located 17 million km from Jupiter.
- Of the 12 satellites, the new three are now split between these two groups: 2 belong to Himalia and 1 to Karpo.
However, scientists believe that more satellites can be found in this space area, whose size does not exceed 3 km. But so far the search has yielded no results. According to scientists, the “hunt” for new moons of Jupiter continues, and it is not yet clear whether Jupiter will be able to hold the palm in terms of the number of satellites if new moons of Saturn are discovered in the near future.
Scientists think the upcoming JUICE and Europa Clipper spacecraft may provide more information about new moons when they arrive at Jupiter early next decade.
As for the current discovery of the gas giant, the NASA spacecraft has sent back a new set of stunning photos of this planet. True, scientists are worried that for the second time in a month there are problems with the main camera of the apparatus, which could lead to the termination of observations.
same Focus He wrote that NASA found the culprit of the accident in the Webb space telescope. Turns out it didn’t come from the solar system.
Source: Focus
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