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11 more moons found around Jupiter

Arrow shows one of the recently identified moons in a background of stars and galaxies.
Arrow shows one of the recently identified moons in a background of stars and galaxies.  


By Richard Stenger
CNN

(CNN) -- Eleven more satellites have been found orbiting Jupiter, raising the total of its identified moons to 39, the most for any planet in the solar system, astronomers announced Thursday.

The discovery continues an unprecedented series of satellite sightings. Last year, the same group of researchers spotted 10 more moons around Jupiter.

In recent years, the official tally of moons in the solar system has more than doubled. Saturn previously held the title of moon king with 30 known satellites, a dozen of which scientists first identified in 2000.

The latest satellites to be identified hardly resemble Jupiter's better-known Galilean moons, the planet-sized Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

They are much smaller, with estimated diameters between 1.2 and 2.4 miles (2 and 4 kilometers). They are much farther out, roughly 12 million miles (20 million kilometers) from Jupiter.

And they travel in highly eccentric orbits in a retrograde fashion, that is, opposite the direction that Jupiter rotates.

Jupiter could have captured the moons during its infancy, the University of Hawaii-led research team speculated.

One theory holds that the planet's atmosphere slowed passing asteroids enough to keep them around for good. Another suggests that the young Jupiter grew so rapidly it trapped nearby objects.

"Both processes would have operated in the first million years of the solar system," they said in an announcement.

The moons travel in clusters and are likely pieces of larger objects that shattered, possibly in collisions with passing comets, the researchers said.

The new satellites were first spotted with the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope atop Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. A University of Hawaii observatory was used to verify their orbital paths.



 
 
 
 



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