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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.

6 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Subaru? by s20451 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know if the telescope is associated with the company. However, in Japanese, "Subaru" is the name for the the Pleiades star cluster.

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  2. Re:Do any of the new ones look like black slabs? by sprouty76 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Shouldn't that be 1:4:9 - the squares of 1, 2, 3?

    Been a while since I read it so I may be mistaken.

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  3. Why? by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What's the difference between a moon and a lump of rock? Why catalog rocks at Jupiter and let all the rocks in Saturn's rings go uncatalogued? Where is the dividing line?

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  4. definition by VanillaCoke420 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What is a moon? We don't even have a definition for a planet yet.

  5. Galileo by dsfd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Galileo discovered only four but this (among other reasons) was enough for Roman Church to prosecute him. The existence of objects moving arround Jupiter was a serious problem for the official geocentric model of the universe, and therefore, a challenge to the authority of the Church. Only recently, the Pope apologized for that.

    I wonder what would they think of the existence of 58 Jovian satellites, just to mention one of the wonders that science has discovered.. Can we reach conclusions from the past history and apply them to the present ?

  6. I wonder... by Trogre · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...how long it will take for these moons to appear in Celestia.

    Quaoar and 2002 MN were added only a few days after being discovered.

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