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Space

New Jovian Moon Discovered 114

Posted by timothy from the no,-I-mean-"look-at-that-thing-by-Jove"! dept.
Mr. GuySmiley writes: "Astronomers of the SpaceWatch Project have discovered a another moon orbiting Jupiter. It has been over 25 years since the last discovery of an outer Jovian satellite (Voyager found three inner moons in 1979). The moon has been designated S/1999 J 1. This brings the total number of moons orbiting Jupiter to 17. Hail the King of the Planets!"
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New Jovian Moon Discovered More

New Jovian Moon Discovered

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  • Given that recent moons have been named after 2000 year old fictional characters I guess we'll have to wait until about 4000 AD before we see moons like Troi and Seven of Nine. Ho hum.
    --

  • Re:Name? (Score:4)

    by bph ( 165894 ) on Friday July 21, 2000 @01:58PM (#913913)
    There is a long drawn bureaucratic process for naming any astronomical object. It will have to be approved by the International Astronomical Union before it can be officially called anything interesting. In the mean time, the astronomers are suppose to use specific designations for specific objects (not that a great many astronomers follow these designations but in press releases, at least, appearances must be maintained).
  • If my memory servers me, I believe that the "inner" jovian moons are those with orbits that are interior to the Galilean sattelites (Jupiter's four largest moons).
  • I would have liked the name 'Data'. Calling the moon 'Mr. Data' would be funny.
  • "My god, it's full of stars..."
  • Or maybe Pizza Hut will pay them to name it PizzaHut.
  • roman mythology actually, if it was greek then the planets would be named hermes, aphrodite, etc. and we'd be talking about the new moon orbiting zeus.

    AFAIK the only planet that uses shakespeare for it's moons is uranus (and i wouldn't have known that if it weren't for blue mars).

  • I've got a very bad feeling about this...

  • the gods (Score:5)

    by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Friday July 21, 2000 @02:21PM (#913920) Homepage Journal
    S/1999 J 1.

    I'm glad to see that they are sticking with the tradition of the roman pantheon as nomenclature.... I did a paper in university on the pre-christian festivals of S/1999J1...

  • you made me feel stupider

    not my intention...

    Most of the planets and moons visible to the naked eye were given names by the Romans and ancient greeks corresponding to their gods. The Romans, partiucularly, were into this, viz. Mercury (god of speed), Jupiter (roman version of Hercules), Neptune (god of the sea) Mars (god of war) and such. I was implying that there was a roman god called S/1999 J 1.

    I didn't say it was actually funny but humour, I suppose is in the eye and mind of the individual. Explains how both Benny Hill and Fargo can both be called comedy, despite the fact they are about as different as possible....

  • I don't know who did this math but it is WAY off. Really, it's been about 21. Last time I checked, 21 was less than 25. But I've been out of school for a while...
  • SOL SYSTEM - Jupiter Satellite Enterprises (JSE) was awarded the patent on "moons" today after patent reviewers said "wow, we'd have never thought of that!" JSE immediately filed lawsuits against Earth, Inc., Consolidated Mars, the Saturn Company (not affiliated with the automobile manufacturer), Uranus Systems, and Neptune Affiliates, claiming patent and intellectual property infringement.

    When asked why no suits had been filed against Pluto concerning its natural satellite Charon, spokesdroids of JSE responded, "Pluto's not a real planet, just a annoying big asteroid who occasionally gets in Neptune's way." Pluto responded by saying "Piss off! Damn, it's cold out here!"

    The defendents each responded quickly, with Earth, Inc., and Consolidated Mars both claiming prior use of moons, and the Saturn Company saying, "We have more moons than Jupiter, our rings are prettier, and we can float in water, so they can get bent!" Neptune Affiliates had no immediate comment, while Uranus Systems was quoted as saying "Quit making fun of our name!"

  • Jupiter is, unless I'm very much mistaken, the largest planet in the system, and Saturn sucks 'cause it floats in my bath :)
  • When did they discover those new moons arround Uranus? I remember it was 15 in th good old days :)

    Alos, I belive that 6 of the 8 Naptunian moons are still called 1986I --> 1986VI, but I'm probably wrong. Havent done much space stuff for a few years.
  • What are the moons of Uranus?

    Mark Duell
  • Good call, "Niven." Better yet, perhaps, "Hal 9000."
  • Right! "Hal 9000" it is. Any seconds to carry motion?
  • Shouldn't you being putting your pinky to your mouth as you intone, "two ... million ... kilometers", Dr. Evil?
  • It's a good thing timothy wasn't the one who discovered S/1999 J1.

    Considering that he thinks that 1979 - 2000 is more than 25 years, the moon could actually be around Saturn.

  • Since we are also discovering gas giants far larger than jupiter orbiting other stars, does that mean that the[y] 'could' be protecting more inner planets than Jupiter in our solar system.

    The extra-solar planets discovered so far are larger, faster moving, and closer to their star. They have not been directly observed yet, only their influence on their star has been seen.

    So, protecting planets - No. Eating Planets - Maybe

    -Richard
  • Christ!

    Funny you should mention that!

    I just submitted an "Ask Slashdot" which posed the question:

    "Is it time (once again..) to ask whether the AC should be done away with to get *some* kind of control over the volume of crap that's getting posted to /."

    For example, cruising at Threshold: 2, this article is currently 91.7% posts at 1 or under!

    91.7%

    And if you were to bother to look, the majority of 'em are plain crap!

    /. has *really* gone all to hell in the last several months..

    t_t_b
    --
    I think not; therefore I ain't®

  • Re:Definition of a moon (Score:3)

    by crsm ( 21260 ) on Saturday July 22, 2000 @03:29AM (#913933)
    The "other" moon of earth is not gravitionally captured by earth. Instead its movement around the sun is synchronized with the earth in a way that make it looks like a moon, as seen from earth.

    A link is here [yorku.ca] . And if you got a lot of time to kill, you could also visit this [arizona.edu] place.
  • Check your sources and your facts before being egregiously sarcastic: Although perhaps the construction isn't the best choice, the original article makes clear that the last outer (>11 Gm, or ) moon was discovered in 1974 while Voyager discovered three inner ( 2 Gm) moons in 1979.
  • Wrong. More moons were disovered during the Voyager missions in the '70s.
  • I'm quite certain that AC posts can be modded up or down, if that's what you mean.

    That's really the only way I ever see 'em, now that I'm cruising at Threshold: 2 -- unfortunately, probably not enough AC posts get modded up, but hey! life's tough!

    Of course there's no way for any one individual AC poster to accumulate karma, if that's what you mean..

    t_t_b
    --
    I think not; therefore I ain't®

  • Could this be the object described in 2001? It's the right planet and about the right size too - about 3 miles across. The press release is strangely silent about any role the Microsoft Paperclip (codename: HAL) might have played in the discovery...
  • "Whether they ever find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered
    an enemy planet." - Jack Handey

  • Definition of a moon (Score:5)

    by bguilliams ( 68934 ) on Friday July 21, 2000 @04:25PM (#913939)
    I'm a big fan of Jupiter and it's moons. And I was initally thrilled by reading the headline. However, it quickly occured to me that a Jovial moon that has not been discovered until recently, must be tiny. A space turd, if you will. Sure enough, the article mentions an estimate for the diameter of the moon at about 3 miles. It's a bit hard to get excited about an ordinary asteroid that happened to get caught in Jupiter's gravitational field.

    But, technically, it's a new moon because it orbits a planet. Of course, every man-made satellite that we've put in orbit around Jupiter, not to mention the Earth, is also, technically, a moon. Not to mention other items, like the infamous glove lost by an astronaut, which will orbit the Earth as a small, insignificant moon until getting sucked in a bit too close to the atmosphere.

    I even seem to remember reading, perhaps on slashdot, about a comet with a hugely erratic orbit that scientists believe centers around the earth. So, we have 2 natural moons!

    In reality, if we lived on Jupiter, and scientists told us that there was a tiny 3 mile long pebble orbitting 15 million miles from the surface that we couldn't see with our naked eye, would we call it a moon? Or would we not worry about it because we're getting squished by the massive gravitational field and dealing with the fact that we're trying to stand on a gaseous planet?
  • The Spacewatch program, which uses a 79-year-old, 36-inch telescope...

    No doubt about it - no power involved. But Jim Scotti was in a sense doing his job by realizing that it was the right time to look, so I not much innovation there. Nevertheless, it didn't take the Hubble and the necessary support to find this moon. Almost like backyard astronomy.

  • but what is funny about this.

    1. Sometimes everyone gets a joke except you. Personally I hate it when that happens, but it sure beats being the only one to get the joke you told.
    2. What I want to know is who the hell thought this was informative? From the mod breakdown Informative=1, Funny=2, Total=3.

  • Does that include this little flea too?
  • If we lived on Jupiter, we'd never notice this extra moon; we'd be too caught up in trying to recover from that mean ol' asteroid that crashed into us several years ago, and caused all the atmospheric stormes and earthquakes...if 'earthquake' is the right word for a gas giant. Or we'd have recovered but be so paranoid, we'd phaser it out of existence :-)
  • Why? 11000 Mm (like you said in your table) is 11x10^9 m, or 11x10^6 km, or 11 million km.
  • Anything orbiting a planet is a moon. The "moons" of Mars are smaller than the biggest asteroids but because they orbit mars. It just a naming thing, it doesn't mean anything scientifically.
  • They must be referring to the fact that Jupiter (Zeus to the Greeks) is the king of the gods in Roman mythology.
  • Anyone care to enlighten me on what is an *inner* moon?
  • Sorry, that name just brings back images of Dirty, Rotten Scoudrels.

    I believe you're thinking of Ruprect, which, of course, may or may not be spelled this way.


    --

  • It has been over 25 years since the last discovery of an outer Jovian satellite (Voyager found three inner moons in 1979).

    What did you get on your ACTs?
  • It is a moon with an orbit within Jupiter's rings.

    Yes, Jupiter has rings.

  • Good question.

    First off, only 5-10 miles big is too small to always be spherical. I believe it is somewhere between 100-200 miles (160-320 km) in diameter before gravitational forces are strong enough to force a spherical shape -- assuming the mean density of most asteroids/planets which can, of course, vary greatly. Please correct me if I am wrong.

    So what is the criteria for an orbiting object to be termed a "natural satellite" then? I assume it is:

    1. A stable, perpetual orbit (which eliminates 99.999% of the rocks out there)
    2. A certain set of characteristics other than size about the object itself -- e.g., magnetic field? attitude and orientation? ???
    3. Other?

    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

  • I agree - it's very subjective. I wouldn't go so far as to call the billions upon billions of ice particles orbiting the larger planets moons in themselves.

    By the same reasoning, Pluto (and Charon) isn't really a planet. If it was discovered today, it would probably be labelled as a double asteroid. (For convenience, too. Think of all the literature that would have to be rewritten these days if another "planet" were discovered. It'd have to be quite a major planet to be categorised as one.)

    Also because it was discovered before there was a well-embedded concept of asteroids, and also during a time (1930's) when many people assumed there must be another planet. For this reason it made it's place as one of the "nine" major planets.

    This reasoning hasn't exactly reached moons yet. If it's orbiting a planet and bigger than a speck of dust, it gets labelled a moon.


    ===
  • Why not call this one Micky Mouse or Donald Duck?
  • Scientists did not comment on Russian findings that the newly discovered moon is in fact the shape of black rectangular slab, and that chimpanzees in an space physics laboratory began to jump up and down at its discovery, ultimately bashing each other to pieces with their feed trays.
  • only if you did the math on an old trusty pentium :)
  • Isn't Hercules the Roman version of Hercules? (Yeah, there supposed to be a spelling difference between the Roman and Greek, but I can't remember it offhand.) I think Jupiter is Zeus.
  • I think Saturn's the car. Otherwise astronomer's would have to Saaat-uuurn all the time.
  • I didn't see a name for the new moon in the announcement. I understand that we're resorting to names from Shakespearean literature because we're running out of names from Greek mythology.

    Unless, of course, anyone here has a better idea for a name... (evil grin)

    ----

  • Name it Dave Bowman! Or perhaps Arthur C Clarke!

    Seriously, if we're out of Greek Gods and Shakespear characters, why not start using the names of people important to science/science fiction? If those Hale/Bopp weanies get a comet, surely Arthur deserves a moon! ;)
  • I seem to recall people talking about this (astronomer type people, that is) when that comet blasted the crap out of Jupiter a few years ago. (Shoemaker-Levy? or is mind _completely_ shot?) Jupiter (and Saturn to a lesser extent) has been acting like a vacuum for alot of big nasty rocks that would otherwise still be zipping into the inner solar system to this day. Can you imagine a Halley every 8 months, or a Shoemaker-Levy ever couple years? Someone might actually start looking for ways to protect Earth, instead of talking about it. Of course, we would almost never have survived long enough to figure out how helpful big gravity wells in the outer solar system can be.
    I believe that it was also said that the moon manages to snag alot of hits that managed to come close to Earth too, although those would've been more asteroids than comets, I suppose.

  • To be sure, tidal forces are putting the pinch on IO, but they are not strong enough to tear it apart, otherwise it would have been torn apart a long time ago. The "trail of debris" is mostly sodium that has been launched into orbit by IO's volcanos.

  • Hmmm.... (Score:4)

    by Frijoles ( 16015 ) on Friday July 21, 2000 @01:45PM (#913962)
    "An estimated 5 to 10 miles in diameter, that 1974 discovery, named Leda"

    So what does it take to become a moon? I mean, 5 to 10 miles is not very big, in my mind at least. Is it merely a size issue or are there other things taken into consideration?
  • I think Jupiter is Zeus.

    yeah, you're right.... dawned on me about 10 seconds after hitting submit... kinda hoped it would slide.

    Isn't Hercules the Roman version of Hercules?

    Well, there's Heracles and Hercules, but thery're both the same guy and both greek. Heracles is the original greek, Hercules is the Roman pronounciation of the greek. Name-mangling is pretty damn common with folks this old. viz. Jesus. Originally Joshua, but the greeks didn't have a "sh" sound, so the made it Josua and changed the "ua" on the end to "ese" since that's an almost mandatory greek name ending. Along come the romans who use "us" as a name ending and change "josese" to "jesus". A far cry from "joshua".

    attention moderators: this is off topic.

  • Actually, Jupiter can provide quite a bit of coverage, over time. The orbits of comets are not generally going to be in sync with Jupiter's orbit, so it's only a matter of time before a comet (especially a short period comet) has a close call with Jupiter and is either captured or flung out of the solar system.
  • that it doesn't take obscene amounts of money to make discoveries. I'm glad that smaller projects still tend to lead the field in terms of innovation, if not in terms of raw power.
  • Yeah, I just read it yesterday for the 1st time, perty good for a Douglas Adams book

  • Weird (Score:1)

    by Sloppy ( 14984 )

    I would have thought that with Galileo and V'ger having gone out there, the area -- er I mean -- the space was already pretty well studied. I guess science never ends.


    ---
  • Might be appropriate. I wrote the software that found it, and I worked completely under Linux! Jeffrey Larsen, Spacewatch

  • ObJoke (Score:3)

    by VarmintCong ( 151154 ) on Friday July 21, 2000 @01:46PM (#913969)
    That's no moon. That's a space station!
  • Does anyone know at what rate the technology NASA / whoever uses to seek moons and extraterrestrial objects advances at?

    The likelihood of there being other moons around Juipiter, or any other gaseous planet for the matter, is pretty good as far as I've read and know...

    So it'd be a matter of time before we discover them, and the rate of technological advance in this situation might...

    Well, just a little curious :) Astronomy isn't my thing but it's interesting :)
  • If you FEED the Troll, you have to take it HOME, and keep it!
    F'ing Trolls! [slashdot.org]

  • 2010 (Score:1)

    by cstew ( 96019 )
    All These Worlds Are Yours-- Except S/1999 J 1. Attempt No Landings There.

  • no joke (Score:1)

    by craw ( 6958 )
    Wrong planet and it is no joke.:) Try Mimas [nasa.gov], one of Saturn's moon.

    Joke? Baaah. I find your lack of faith...

  • Pluto is Roman name for Hades, the god of the Underworld.

  • Re:Definition of a moon (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    No, a moon is a natural satellite. Anything that revolves around a planet is a satellite.
  • What the hey - break tradition with the other Jovian satellite names and call it "Clarke".
  • Actually, *Uranus* has more moons too. (No jokes please.) The current totals: Mercury 0 Venus 0 Earth 1 (not counting Iridia :-)) Mars 2 Jupiter 17 Saturn 18 Uranus 21 Neptune 8 Pluto 1
  • Hmmm. Interesting. But Jupiter's orbit is so much larger than ours, how much coverage can it really provide? It seems to me that we don't coincide with it that much. On the other hand, it's intriguing to wonder how many comets have been pulled just a few miles off course by a gas giant and thus drastically affected other planets.
    Wow. This is going to keep me up all night...
    -J
  • Umm.. obviously they would name it MoonHut.
  • was discovered, if 3 moons were discovered in
    1979?

    Pick them nits,
    -Karl
  • This begs the question, when will we start resorting to names from Star Trek movies and literature?

    Btw, your signature reminded me of that ST:TNG episode where Data gets amnesia. At one point, he and some others examine a box that he had with him that has 'Radioactive' written on it, and he thinks it could be his name. He's also stuck on some world with a primative people and he's the smartest one.
  • Pretty original. Why can't they pick something more modern? How about names from sci-fi classics? Why not call it Spock?

    I think we should call it Planet of the Apes!
  • YES! During the origin of the solar system, there were comets and asteroids forming through out the solar system. Jupiter with it's large gravitational field, captured or flung out of the solar system most of the comets and asteroids that were nearby during the formation of the solar system.

    Current thought is that Jupiter (along with the other gas giants) are responsible for the formation of the Oort cloud, the spherical halo of comets out at the edge of the solar system). All the comets formed much closer to the sun than they are now, but were subsequently ejected into the outer solar system by the giant planets.

  • I've got 70 sq. miles of virgin Jovian-front property available, cheap. Spectacular views! Excellent place to get away from it all! PHONE HOME or e-mail <hal@century22.s1999j1.jup.sol> for more details.

    Also, contact Pizza Hut [pizzahut.com] for possible franchising opportunities:
    "Pizza Hut is a pioneer [pizzahut.com] in space commercialization" - Rick Hieb.

  • "Hail the King of the Planets!"

    Not to be picky, here, but I believe that Saturn [seds.org] has more moons than Jupiter [seds.org]. Of course, the poster didn't say that, but I just wanted to be sure that nobody inferred incorrectly. :-)

    [Thanks to Students of the Exploration and Development of Space (www.seds.org) [seds.org] for the reference. Check out for a list of all the named moons for both.]

  • Seems that Uranus [seds.org] has even more moons that Jupiter or Saturn. Should have looked deeper into the site.

    So, for completness' sake:

    • Mercury: 0
    • Venus: 0
    • Earth: 1
    • Mars: 2
    • Jupiter: 17
    • Saturn: 18
    • Uranus: 21
    • Neptune: 8
    • Pluto: 1

    Also, I believe that all moons (except Luna) are named after Roman mythological figures, except those of Uranus, which are from more modern literature (Shakespeare and Pope). This is not a recent phenomena, the first discovered moon of Uranus was named in 1787 (by Herschel). So he's the visonary who bucked the trend. :-)

  • attention moderators: this is off topic.

    Good god man, don't encourage them, they're out of control as it is!
  • How big was that monolith by Jupiter anyway?
  • the moons that i know of are miranda, oberon, ariel, titania and umbriel. there might be more.
  • All these worlds
    are yours except
    Europa
    Attempt no
    landing there
    Use them together
    Use them in peace

    --
  • I think AC's should remain, but if they get modded, they should still affect the poster.
  • You are absolutely right! The Earth does have 2 moons. One of them we all know and love, and affectionately call "The Moon". The other is actually a (gravitationally) captured asteroid - not a comet. As to what they called it I can't remember. Unless it hits the Earth I'm sure it doesn't really matter. It's pretty tiny, less than a couple of km's across anyway.
  • From the article:
    The moon has been designated S/1999 J 1.

    Pretty original. Why can't they pick something more modern? How about names from sci-fi classics? Why not call it Spock?

    kwsNI

  • I remember that, too. I think it was a PBS special on when Shoemaker-Levy/9 (RIP Eugene) after it slammed into Jupiter. Jupiter barely shuddered, but the plume on the fragment G was larger than the Earth.
  • The international astronomy organisation (IAU?) did float a proposal to redesignate Pluto as a minor planet last year. Got voted down mainly due to opposition from the American side as Pluto is the only "planet" discovered by an American. (Clyde Tombaugh)

    Personally I see their point, Pluto is smaller than our Moon and has a pretty wacky orbit for a planet. And apparantly although Tombaugh did use good science to track it, it's only dumb luck that he found it as Pluto does not account for the perturbation of the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
  • I think they'll still give it a more proper (read interesting) name.

    Personally, I'm thinking something along the lines of "Rupert".

    ----

  • We've at least got the Space Shuttle Enterprise (okay, so that was only a quasi-space shuttle) and Deep Space 1..
  • This to the idiot who moderated me down
    It was a funny, and as far as i know an accurate observation.

    --
  • Perhaps after funding the launch of the latest ISS rocket, Pizza Hut will start funding planetary body searches, on the condition that they get to name whatever they find..

    Dateline October, 2015: Jupiter's 18th and 19th moons, named for the company that funded their discovery, are known as Meat Lovers and Big Foot.
  • Uhh. the post says that the last outer moons were discovered >25 years ago. Voyager discovered three inner moons in 1979.
  • They do this by virtue of the fact that there are a LOT of them! And the few large projects can't scan the whole sky at any given time, but all of the thousands upon thousands of small-time operations and amateur astronomers, as a collective, can, even without being organized to do so.

  • Actually one of the more interesting things about Jupiter is that it's often in a tug of war with the sun with respect to the outer satellites. It's thought that every so often, Jupiter can capture an asteroid from the asteriod belt, hold it in orbit for a few years, and then a few years later, the sun takes the asteroid back. So it's probably best said that Jupiter does not have a fixed number of satellites.

    As for the rate of technological advance, it's basically the rate at which we can build larger telescopes (as well as correct for atmospheric seeing effects). Larger telescopes can see fainter and smaller objects (higher resolution), so the larger the 'scope the better chance of discoving small faint objects in orbit.

    That's the simplified answer, anyway.

  • Space Garbage (Score:3)

    by Spazmoid ( 75087 ) on Friday July 21, 2000 @02:07PM (#914004)
    This type of thing makes me wonder, how much garbage has Jupiter (and our other gas giant planets) colelcted and thus reduced the chance of a major impact on earth.

    Since we are also discovering gas giants far larger than jupiter orbiting other stars, does that mean that the 'could' be protecting more inner planets than Jupiter in our solar system.

    Makes ya wonder.


    www.mp3.com/Undocumented [mp3.com]
  • Where for art thou, S/1999 J 1.

    Ring a bell?
  • Well, all moons have an Inner moon just waiting to get out.

  • The Other Obligatory Joke (Score:4)

    by DanMcS ( 68838 ) on Friday July 21, 2000 @02:10PM (#914007)
    RMS proposed it actually be called GNU/S/1999 J 1.
    --
  • Its sad but true, look at the planets.

    Mercury - named after Mercury Technologies
    Venus - Well, this was a joint investment from Venus Internet (UK) and Venus the semi-porn site.
    Earth - Well, thats pretty original I guess.
    Mars - Bar anyway?
    Jupiter - Financial investment company
    Saturn - Sega's amazing console
    Uranus - Andrex?
    Neptune - Neptune Refrigeration poured a lot into this planet
    Pluto - From Disney's favourite dog

    And peopel complain about Pizza Hut advertising on the moon, its about the only place left!
  • I'm getting tired of all this slashdot spam.
  • I got a 36 on mine :)

  • greatplanetnames.com! (Score:4)

    by komet ( 36303 ) on Friday July 21, 2000 @01:54PM (#914020) Homepage
    IMHO, the crap name given to the moon (S/1999 J 1) is only temporary until they can raise corporate sponsorship - expect the name to soon be changed to "TheMoon.com" or "AOL Time Warner, in association with Jupiter" or "SlashMoon".

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