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43 More Moons Discovered Orbiting Jupiter

Posted by michael on from the space-junk dept.

linuxwrangler writes "Scott S. Sheppard, a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, has discovered 43 more moons orbiting Jupiter more than doubling the number of known Jovian moons. The small moons, which follow wildly irregular orbits, are thought to be the result of ancient collisions of larger moons. Sheppard used a 2.2 and a 3.6 meter telescope at the Mauna Kea observatory to catalog the moons."

5 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. What's the total? by aster_ken · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've read several of these "more moons around planet " on Slashdot recently, and I'm just curious:

    What's the total number discovered around Jupiter? Saturn? Neptune? Mars? Pluto? Etc.?

    I know Earth has two, but I don't really know about the others. Mars has two, right?

    1. Re:What's the total? by geoswan · · Score: 3, Interesting
      And this story is just an update to these two stories.

      And no, Earth is not known to have two moons, unless you use a really weird definition of "moon". And if you use that weird definition, it would not be two, it would be three.

  2. Definitely a rising star... by 0x69 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A young grad student is getting time on some of professional astronomy's top-tier toys, then publishing his results in Nature? Very interesting indeed...

    Even if it's a fix, this guy seems a shoe-in to get (*extremely* scarce) good job offers in astronomy.

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    It's easy to make up & spread cool- and credible-sounding stuff. Finding & checking hard facts is hard work.
    1. Re:Definitely a rising star... by astrobabe · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I don't think the big profs count the 2.2 and 3.6 meter telescopes as a top tier toy. As an undergrad at Arizona I had regular access to a 2.3 meter and a 2.4 meter telescope on Kitt Peak immediately after my freshman year. Part of this was due to having a nice advisor and some of it was because everyone else was trying to use bigger telescopes like the MMT and Magellan.

      Seeing as this guy is at Hawaii I'm betting the fights over the 2 to 3 meter class telescopes is no where near the fights people would get into over the much bigger (10 meter class) WM Keck telescopes

      And after only an undergrad degree I have a cushy job in astronomy at the SIRTF Science Center that pays more than some astro postdocs. . . .

  3. Re:Not a moon, IMHO by barakn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The "400 captured asteroids" aren't called moons, not because they are asteroids, but because they are not moons, i.e. they are not captured. They are Trojans that orbit the sun (not Jupiter) with the same period as Jupiter. And there's over 1600 of them.

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