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Jupiter, in addition to being the largest and most massive planet in the solar system, currently has the most moons around it, 92 in all, making the gas giant the largest body in the solar system overall.
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According to a recent Sky and Telescope story, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Minor Planet Centre (MPC) has discovered the orbits of Jupiter's 12 unnamed moons. With these new findings, Jupiter has overtaken Saturn to claim the title of "planet with the most moons in the solar system."
So far, 83 moons have been identified around the ringed gas giant, the second-largest planet in the solar system. However, scientists have identified masses of boulders up to roughly 2 miles (3 kilometres) broad near Saturn without adequately following the objects, according to Sky and Telescope. As soon as technology permits for the study of these smaller moons, Jupiter may have to relinquish its new title to Saturn.
Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institute for Science in Washington, DC, has submitted observations of the Jovian system made in 2021 and 2022 for publication, according to Space. The reason for the delay between the discovery and confirmation of the new moons is that scientists needed to track the pebbles for a complete orbit to ensure they were actually orbiting Jupiter.
According to Sky and Telescope, all of the new moons circle Jupiter at a distance of more than 340 Earth days. Nine of the twelve new moons are exceedingly distant. Their orbits are more than 550 days long. All of these moons are tiny; just five of the nine moons are thought to be larger than five miles in diameter (8 km).
In contrast, the outer Jovian moons have "prograde" orbits that round the gas giant in the same direction as the planet's rotation. The nine distant moons have retrograde orbits, which means they circle the gas giant in the opposite direction of its revolution. The new moons' retrograde orbits imply that Jupiter's enormous gravitational attraction may have captured them, with the smaller ones perhaps being fragments of bigger entities that clashed and split apart.
Some of the newly found moons have prograde orbits, indicating that they formed near Jupiter. The huge inner moons known as the Galilean moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, which were discovered by Galileo Galilei in the early 1600s. These prograde orbiting moons are located in the centre of space, among 13 other Jovian moons.
