Jupiter: 12 new moons discovered – A total of 92 around the giant planet

Twelve new moons were discovered in orbit around the Forraising its total to 92.

The moons they were discovered in 2021 and 2022, but their existence was recently confirmed.

THE Scott Sheppard, astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., is the man who first spotted them.

In the long list of Jupiter’s moons are also the four satellites, or otherwise the four moons of Galileonamed after the astronomer Galileo Galilei, who observed the satellites in 1610 and they are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

THE Ganymedewhich is larger in size than the planet Mercuryis the largest moon in the solar system.

None of Jupiter’s new moons have a name, but in the coming months each will be individually assigned a number by the Minor Planet Center.
“The International Astronomical Union allows the naming of any moon that has an area longer than 2.4 km. It is important to mention that the 6 out of 12 moons discovered are older than 2.4 km²so they’re going to get names,” Shepard told CNN.

“Both Uranus and Neptune are also believed to have a large number of small moons, but because they are considerably more distant, it is even more difficult to detect the smaller moons around these planets.”

Watch NASA video of the Juno spacecraft flying over Jupiter and its moon, Ganymede:

The moons of the planets of our solar system

Earth: 1

Mars: 2

Neptune: 14

Uranus: 27

Saturn: 83

Jupiter: 92

Jupiter Basics

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and the largest in our solar system.

It is a huge ball of gas composed mostly of hydrogen and helium, with some heavy elements.

“Jupiter’s familiar streaks and swirls are actually cold, stormy clouds of ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium,” NASA said.

Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot is a gigantic storm, larger than Earth that has been raging for hundreds of years.

The planet is twice the size of all the other planets combined, and the Great Red Spot alone is large enough to fit the entire Earth inside.

Characteristics:

Distance from the sun: 750 million km

Orbit period: 12 years

Area: 61.42 billion km²

Radius: 69,911 km

Mass: 1.898 × ​​10^27 kg (317.8 M⊕)

Day duration: 9 hours and 56 minutes

Moons: 92

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