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New Moon of Jupiter Discovered
xihr writes "Astronomers have discovered a new moon of Jupiter, bringing its known retinue of satellites to a whopping 40. The new moon, designated S/2002 J1, is only 3 km wide, and has a highly inclined and eccentric orbit.
Astronomy.com has the story."
Only 3 km wide? At what point does it go from being a relatively small chunk of rock floating around a planet to being a moon?
Would it be possible haul enough of a mountain into space orbit to be technically classified as a moon? I mean, man has walked on Earth's moon.. but is he able to make one himself? Or has he already?
-Matt
I remember when jupiter only had 10 moons.
That aside, I wonder when the folks working on Celestia will release an update to display the new moon in the space similator.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
How possible is it that this moon was recently captured in Jupiter's gravity (say in the last few years)? Maybe this could explain it's eccentric orbit (ie that it hit tangentally enough that it wasn't sucked in while not so shallow as to bounce away)? Does such a thing happen or am I blowing smoke out of my ass?
*checks*
Hmmm, no smoke yet.
What is music when you despise all sound?
Just one question: when is an object considered a moon?
I've tried the USGS, the IAU, and a general google search. This is going to annoy me to no end until I get an answer.
I will now redundantly add my name to the end of my post. You know, in case you forgot me or something.
As for where the other satellites came from....
The discovery of the last eleven of them is discussed here (39);
the eleven before those are discussed here (28);
the one before those is discussed here (17);
The whole thing is rather subjective really. Like when does a boat become a ship?
The answer in both cases is somewhat similar. A ship is a vessel large enough to carry a boat. Not very enlightening actually, if you insist on rigid taxonomy for every little object in existence. After all, a 22' sailboat can carry an 8' tender on deck, and yet remains merely a boat, not a ship.
The basic standard for being a planet is large enough to have a moon. Uh huh. Cue the self referencial infinate loop here.
Although Pluto meets, barely, this standard, quietly in the backrooms it isn't even really considered a planet these days. If we knew as much about it in the 30's it probably never would have been classified as a planet in the first place. "Planet" is also largely considered to only apply to those major bodies that were formed as such with the solar system. Circumstancial evidenced suggests that Pluto started "life" as a moon of Neptune that "got away," possibly knocked out of orbit by a comet.
That would mean Pluto is a planet that's *also* a moom, although without being a planetary satellite. It's a weird dude, dude.
The only rule for being considered a moon is being "big enough" to be so classified. Uh huh. Cue thumb up nose routine here.
The rule of, ummmmmmmmm, thumb, is if you can walk around on it it's a moon. Unless it isn't rocky, we're prejudiced against ice balls. Or maybe if it's discovered on Tuesday. Who knows?
Of course most of these small moons of the gas giants wouldn't even come close to meeting the formed naturally in the system test. They're pretty much space junk that's ended up stuck in the planet's gravitational field as they wandered by. Captured asteroids. Cue video game joke here.
Of course if you could literally anthropomorphise a bit of space rock and ask it what it was ( which I don't recommend because they hate that) it would almost certainly say, "Yahwe, now bugger off." It is what it is, and that's all that it is.
This urge to rigidly classify everything is a human failing. The rocks themselves couldn't care less.
KFG