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Jupiter's Eleven New Moons
nautical9 writes "Yahoo is reporting that scientists have discovered 11 new moons orbiting around Jupiter, bringing the total to 39. They were discovered using the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope and one of the largest digital imaging cameras in the world. Unfortunately, very little is known about them at this point other than that they're relatively small (compared to the previously known ones), and they all have irregular orbits."
Could these be remnants of Jupiter's surface having been ejected by the impact of the Shoemaker comet?
Very interesting. Would have been better with better pics, though.
I have been pwned because my
Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On Jupiter and Mars
In other words, hold my hand
In other words, baby kiss me
Fill my heart with song
and let me sing forevermore
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
I have been pwned because my
To quote someone I don't know, and don't care to look up:
"The Solar System consists of the Sun, Jupiter, and various other debris"
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Eccentric, irregular and long, eliptical orbits generally mean that the satellite has been captured by the planet's gravity - i.e. the satellite is an asteroid that passed through Jupiter's gravity field with insufficent velocity to escape.
Some of these satellites may develop stable orbits, others are likely to eventually either escape Jupiter's gravity well or fall into the planet. Most of these satellites would cross the orbits of other satellites (the long, elliptical orbits compared to the more stable almost-circular orbits) and these other bodies will have a large effect on the fate of the captured satellite.
The story on space.com has more details on this.
Also see the offical offical press release from University of Hawaii.
If Jupiter can do it, why can't we? I'd like to see Earth improve its moon count, as we have only one.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Someone who was on one of the moon-hunting teams worried about that to me about a year ago. I compiled a list of 50 names of nurses and paramours of Jupiter with a simply search, so I'm not quite worried, yet. Another 11 and we'll need to get concerned.
"What do they mean with "excentric" or "irregular" orbits? They also mention "long, elliptical orbits" but that's more the opposite of irregular, isn't it?"
/. about this because Jupiter has taken a few on the chin for us. On the other hand, maybe there would be another planet between Jupiter and Mars if it weren't for Jupiter, reducing the number of asteroids out there.
Orbiting in the direction opposite to the rotation of the planet and orbiting at an incline relative to the planet and orbiting elliptically. A typical orbit being (per our local prejudice) being somewhat circular as opposed to more elliptical.
I tend to agree with the conclusions of the researchers that the irregularity of the orbits of some suggests that the objects were trapped by Jupiter's gravity and that they have broken up over time. My initial thought was that Jupiter sucks up an inordinate amount of junk. Asteroids and comets fly by earth with some regularity. It would not surprise me if similar objects flying by Jupiter would get sucked into an orbit on occasion. There has certainly been enough time since the formation of the solar system to have this happen with some degree of regularity.
The similarities with the other gas giants having much larger numbers of moons and irregular moons(Saturn in particular) suggests that this may be a common attribute of gas giants, based on our extensive sample size of four.
I wonder how long it will be until these objects completely degrade into smaller bits of debris or perhaps ring material?
I also wonder how much crap Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus/Neptune have sucked out of the solar system (asteroids, comets, etc.)? I also wonder how much we should be thankful that there are a number of gas giants in our solar system to clean up some of the Kuiper belt visitors and the closer meteorite bits/asteroids in the inner solar system? It is quite possible that we are here to
Guac-foo, full of speculation and wonder at the cosmos -- billyuns and billyuns of SWAGs this morning.
Lots of petrified grits
That's its *name*. Look: CFHT.
This was the number one hit on Google for 'canada france hawaii'. Do a bit of research on the telescopes you're posting about, before you just generalize!
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
It's Jupiter mooning us again!
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
Now most people know that all fo jupiter's moons are named after mortal chicks that Zeus scored with. He was a pretty damn big pimp. He was the Clinton of the Gods, but even he didn't score with 40 mortal womens.... I mean damn 39
A rabbit in the hand is worth 4 in the cage
Are you sure you are Canadian, or are you an emigrant from the U. S. A.? The half-baked, uninformed, ignorant diatribe you posted is an embarrassment to those of us Americans with Canadian parents and relatives. Next time try doing a web search for the topic BEFORE ingesting your foot. More nutritious and easier to swallow too. The Canadian-French-Hawaii telescope is real and is named just as the OP sent.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
With that many moons, Jovian werewolves cannot revert to their non-lupine form except on the rarest of occasions. They probably forget how to change back entirely, probably going years with at a couple of full moons in the sky.
I think we should establish a charitable organazation dedicated to the plight of the Jovian werewolf, deprived of the right to exist in their original form.