(ORDO NEWS) — Astronomers have discovered 12 new moons of Jupiter. The gas giant now has 92 moons.
This is more than any other planet in our solar system. Jupiter’s moons have recently been added to a list maintained by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union.
They were discovered using telescopes in Hawaii and Chile in 2021 and 2022. The orbits of the satellites were confirmed by subsequent observations.
The sizes of these new moons vary from 1 to 3 kilometers.
In April, the European Space Agency sends a spacecraft to Jupiter to study the planet and some of its largest icy moons.
And next year, NASA will launch the Europa Clipper to explore Europa, Jupiter’s moon that can hide an ocean beneath its frozen crust.
Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution, discovered many moons around Saturn a few years ago and has so far been involved in 70 moon discoveries around Jupiter.
The scientist expects to continue to replenish the list of satellites of both giants.
Jupiter and Saturn have many small moons, Sheppard said, which are thought to be fragments of once-large moons that collided with each other or with comets and asteroids.
The same goes for Uranus and Neptune, but they are very far away and this makes it difficult to detect their moons.
For reference, Uranus has 27 confirmed moons, Neptune has 14, Mars has two, and Earth has one.
The newly discovered moons of Jupiter have not yet been named. Sheppard said only half of them are big enough to get a name.
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