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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.
Some new worlds to explore with my starship made from a floppy!
>
... that all this time Jupiter has been mooning us 58 times simultaneously. That cheeky devil!
OLPC Australia
I know which I would prefer.
___
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In the proportion 1:3:9?
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Yes, they make a telescope, and it transfers power from the moons that slip to the moons that grip!
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
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
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.
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.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
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 ?