Astronomers have discovered 12 new moons around
Jupiter, putting the total count at a record-breaking 92.
That’s more than any other planet in our solar
system. Saturn, the one-time leader, comes in a close second with 83 confirmed
moons.
The Jupiter moons were added recently to a list kept
by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, said Scott
Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution, who was part of the team.
They were discovered using telescopes in Hawaii and
Chile in 2021 and 2022, and their orbits were confirmed with follow-up
observations.
These newest moons range in size from 0.6 miles to 2
miles (1 kilometer to 3 kilometers), according to Sheppard.
“I hope we can image one of these outer moons
close-up in the near future to better determine their origins,” he wrote in an
email.
In April, the
European Space Agency is sending a spacecraft to Jupiter to study the planet
and some of its biggest, icy moons. And next year, NASA will launch the Europa
Clipper to explore Jupiter’s moon of the same name, which could harbor an ocean
beneath its frozen crust.
Sheppard — who discovered a slew of moons around
Saturn a few years ago and has taken part in 70 moon discoveries so far around
Jupiter — expects to keep adding to the lunar tally of both gas giants.
Jupiter and Saturn are loaded with small moons, believed
to be fragments of once bigger moons that collided with one another or with
comets or asteroids, Sheppard said. The same goes for Uranus and Neptune, but
they’re so distant that it makes moon-spotting even harder.
For the record, Uranus has 27 confirmed moons,
Neptune 14, Mars two and Earth one. Venus and Mercury come up empty.
Jupiter’s newly discovered moons have yet to be
named. Sheppard said only half of them are big enough — at least 1 mile (1.5
kilometers) or so — to warrant a name.