New Satellites of Jupiter Discovered

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.

Comments

Great!

[Treeluvinhippy]

Some new worlds to explore with my starship made from a floppy!

To think....

[The Original Yama]

... that all this time Jupiter has been mooning us 58 times simultaneously. That cheeky devil!

Other uses for the powerful technology?

[Mattygfunk1]

Would you rather have powerful telescopes pointed at Jupiter looking for more moons, or looking nearby for potential "dinosaur style" human-killing asteriods?

I know which I would prefer.

___
bump bump bump cheap web site hosting

Re:Other uses for the powerful technology?

[AndroidCat]

IANAA, but I thought that you don't really want to use the most powerful telescopes for spoting comets and asteroids. You want something that can see a relatively large area of the sky, and when you spot something moving, you zoom in with the "big guns".

Re:Subaru?

[s20451]

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.

Do any of the new ones look like black slabs?

[happyhippy]

In the proportion 1:3:9?

Re:Do any of the new ones look like black slabs?

[sprouty76]

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.

You mean

[pardasaniman]

You mean the Canada-Freedom-Hawaii!! Silly Americans! Tricks are for kids!

Those guys a start a company

[arvindn]

Jovian satellite naming services Inc

Get your own Jupiter moon NOW! We offer to name any newly discovered satellite of Jupiter with a word of your choice. Rates starting at just $100/moon! For satellites up to a diameter of 500 km we charge only $100, and $50 extra for every 200km of additional size. You can pre-book a name for yet to be discovered satellites up to 3 years in advance! We have exclusive contracts with international astrophysical society. So hurry!!

Why?

[A nonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Why?

[Theodore Logan]

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.

Re:Why?

[imsabbel]

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.

Re:Subaru?

[worst_name_ever]

Yes, they make a telescope, and it transfers power from the moons that slip to the moons that grip!

definition

[VanillaCoke420]

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

Re:definition

[B3ryllium]

A moon is when you bend over and show Uranus to someone.

Re:I doubt that the observations are correct.

[CheshireCatCO]

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.

Strange

[Timesprout]

to think that given the size of the universe we are still discovering things that are practically on top of us. Makes you wonder what else is out there.

Thanks God

[BohKnower]

I always use Jupiter's satellites to name my servers and I was getting out of options.

I Propose a New Icon

[use_compress]

If scientists want to find 100 moons orbiting Jupiter, there are going to be many Slashdot articles on new Jovian moons. Thus, I propose we create a new icon for all of these articles.

Mass of Jupiter.

[Eevee]

You know how it is with those crash diets. First you cut back until you're only 254 times as massive as the Earth. Then, you get a sudden craving for a frozen treat and have a couple of comets and bam! You're up to 318 again.

Galileo

[dsfd]

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 ?

Re:Subaru?

[The Dobber]

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

I wonder...

[Trogre]

...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.