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New Satellites of Jupiter Discovered

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the break-out-cigars-jupiter's-a-daddy dept.

dss902 writes "The discovery of 18 new satellites of Jupiter, bringing the total of known Jupiter satellites to 58 were made using the world's two largest digital cameras at the Subaru (8.3 meter diameter) and Canada-France-Hawaii (3.6 meter diameter) telescopes atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Recoveries were performed at the University of Hawaii 2.2 meter with help from Yanga Fernandez and Henry Hsieh also from the University of Hawaii. Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics performed the orbit fitting for the new satellites. More info here." We ran a story on the first eight, but now... eighteen.

4 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why? by Theodore+Logan · · Score: 4, Informative

    First off, note that the write up mentions only satellites and says nothing about moons.

    But as for your question: historically there hasn't been a need for a hard definition, and hence there isn't one. At this point in time, however, with 118 official moons in the solar system and a whole bunch of candidates, lines need to be drawn.

    You may want to read this article for details.

    --

    "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok

  2. Re:I doubt that the observations are correct. by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 4, Informative

    Please explain the logic that lead to your conclusion that these moons are so close to Jupiter? Smaller has NEVER meant closer to the primary. Mars is smaller than Earth. Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are smaller than Jupiter. Kuiper-Belt and Oort Cloud comets are smaller than nearly anything else. I could go on with this listing for quite a while, but you get the point.

    If you check the database, all of these newly discovered moons are outside of the orbits of most of the heretofore known moons. Well, well outside, in fact. These irregular moons are probably captured asteroids.

    For your calculation to be right, by the way, the moons would be orbiting Jupiter 35 meters from it's barycenter. I'm going to question your orbital semi-major axes. (Also, your mass of Jupiter is incorrect. It's 318 times the mass of Earth.) Also, moons don't rotate about their planet, they revolve. Rotate means to spin.

  3. Re:Why? by imsabbel · · Score: 2, Informative

    well, it is true that these new moons arent very large, but saturns rings are 99% little more then dust (the roche-threshold is a bitch). There are a few very large "rocks" in the rings, but they are reckognized as moons.

    --
    HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
  4. Re:Subaru? by The+Dobber · · Score: 2, Informative

    Actually its owned by the Japanese goverment. As I recall, the prime contractor was Mitsubishi. That was a long time ago (10+ years) though, so I might be wrong. Big ass piece of glass though. 30+ tons, shipping box weighed another 30 tons.

    Little background on the scope

    http://www.corning.com/discovery_center/subaru_i nd ex_content_pop.asp