Discovery of 10 New Moons Orbiting Jupiter

Astronomers announced on Tuesday that they have discovered 10 new moons orbiting the planet Jupiter, and it appears that one of them may collide with others due to its movement in the opposite direction of the other moons. With this discovery, the total number of identified moons of Jupiter reaches 79. The recently identified moons are relatively small. Jupiter, the fifth planet in the solar system, has very large moons; for example, one named Ganymede has a diameter of over 5,000 kilometers, making it the largest moon in the solar system. In contrast, the newly discovered moons have diameters ranging from 1 to 4 kilometers, which is very small compared to Jupiter's diameter of about 143,000 kilometers. A research group led by Scott Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, has discovered a total of 12 moons of Jupiter, with the news of 10 of them announced on Tuesday. Scott Sheppard stated that these moons are likely objects that were captured by the immense gravitational power of Jupiter during the early formation stages of the solar system. He added, 'Jupiter acts like a vacuum cleaner due to its massive size. These objects have moved into orbit around it instead of falling onto its surface. Therefore, likely half of their mass is ice and the other half is rock.' The most interesting of the recently discovered moons is named Valetudo, which in ancient Roman mythology was considered the maternal ancestor of Jupiter and was the goddess of health and cleanliness. Valetudo orbits in the same direction as Jupiter, while several other smaller moons orbit in a shared path but in the opposite direction. Scott Sheppard says, 'Valetudo is moving in the wrong direction and may collide with other moons, and it has likely collided with them over time.' With 79 identified moons, Jupiter has the most moons among the planets in the solar system, while Saturn, with 62 identified moons, ranks second. However, Scott Sheppard believes that the number of moons of these two planets is likely similar, but the smaller moons of Saturn have yet to be identified. Any celestial body that orbits a planet, regardless of its size, is considered a moon. In the solar system, only two planets, Mercury and Venus, which are closest to the sun, do not have moons. Of the 79 moons of Jupiter, 26, including 9 recently discovered ones, have yet to be named.