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Space Science

Jupiter's "Mini-Me" Solar System Grows 186

Posted by timothy from the planetoidenal dept.
An anonymous reader writes "University of Hawaii's robotic telescopes have discovered 8 new moons for Jupiter, thus bringing its mini solar system to 48 total. No one knows how Jupiter dissipates the energy of these likely asteroid captures, unless it once had a massively larger atmosphere. Indeed, its ion cloud today seems to spell doom for what Sir Arthur C. Clarke indicated, is another reason to avoid probing life on Europa. ('All these worlds are yours--except Europa. Attempt no landings there.'-- 2010: Odyssey Two). As an aside, one of those NASA sites seem technically to be doing text-to-speech in a very familiar-sounding, Stephen Hawkings version [MP3] of those articles."
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Jupiter's "Mini-Me" Solar System Grows More

Jupiter's "Mini-Me" Solar System Grows

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  • No reason not to look for life on Europa NOW is there? I mean, any such doom for the planetary system would probably be a few million years off?

    • Re:Spell doom for the system (Score:4, Insightful)

      by IAR80 ( 598046 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:34PM (#5453833) Homepage
      We should look for life on Europa but I thing it is not the right moment. We lack technical capabilities for now. A probe looking for life on Europa should travel the distance between Earth and Jupiter, land on Europa, burn its way through a very thick layer of ice (maybe 10 - 20km, swim autonmously trough a dark ocean probing for life, find its way up to the surface and transmit data back to earth. I think this is out of our technicak capabilities for now. Maybe latter.

      • Re:Spell doom for the system (Score:4, Informative)

        by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:46PM (#5453948)
        Agreed, that it looks impossible right now. We need an enormous velocity to get to Jupiter and then need to lose almost all of that to enter orbit around Europa. Any space-craft would be something like 90% fuel unless we use some radical technologies - which will need a lot of testing.

        Although a halfway step would be nice - a high resolution Europa orbiter would be very useful. Then we could see exactly what the whole surface looked like, map it with radar and so on. Perhaps we could map the heat flow through the surface from that projected Europan ocean, work out what trace materials form those dark streaks, perhaps it would even be able to remote sense organic compounds that have come to the surface.

        Still we can at least rule out a manned mission - the Jovian magnetosphere would cook any Frank Pooles and Dave Bowmans long before they got to Europa.

        Best wishes,
        Mike.

        • scripsit mikerich:

          Still we can at least rule out a manned mission - the Jovian magnetosphere would cook any Frank Pooles and Dave Bowmans long before they got to Europa.

          Nah, we just have to develop shields first.

      • Re:Spell doom for the system (Score:4, Interesting)

        by wideBlueSkies ( 618979 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @10:46PM (#5455321) Journal
        Yeah, but they're working on this technology using the work done at Lake [ibiblio.org] Vostok [si.edu] as an example.

      • I see it as launching a craft that would put into orbit around europa and detach mini probes that would plunge/melt through the surface, transmitting discoveries to the "mother ship" and thus back to earth. All very "simple", electromagnetic waves can go through water, you know...

      • All this, while not contaminating any alien species' primordial goop, and wiping them all out just as we discover them.

  • Bad text to speech.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:13PM (#5453681) Homepage Journal
    Geez, I checked out that text to speech link and was surprised the voice was not of any higher quality. Mac users at least, have had much better text to speech quality for years now going back to the mid 90's.

    • Re:Bad text to speech.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by missing000 ( 602285 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:20PM (#5453730)
      Thequalityisokbymebutthewordsallseemtoruntogether
    • The MP3 is at 8 kbps quality. What would you expect, heh.
      • The MP3 is at 8 kbps quality. What would you expect, heh

        Actually, I am referring to the quality of the voice in terms of its "natural" sound and the ability of the speech algorithm to parse language into continuous speech withoutrunningwordstogether, as another poster amusingly put it and to properly enunciate.

    • Wow, that is crap. The poor quality of the MP3 doesn't help either.

      Just the other night I was listening to BOFH episodes while lying in bed, and although the pronunciation isn't always accurate, I've gotten used to what kinds of mistakes it makes, and can almost always understand it. It's far less monotonous than this, in any case.
    • Actually it was State-of-the-art Text-to-speech at the time... Centigram Communications now SS8 Networks (91 E. Tasman San Jose surrounded by Cisco buildings ) started licensing the technology in 1993. It is based on a mathematical simulation of the vocal cords and voice tract and was very good in the day.

      Beside the actually voice quality the system also had very context sensitive parsing and could read addresses, titles, newspaper headaline, etc. properly.

      One of the major licensees was Lernout & Hauspie who sometime around 1997 bought the division from Centigram.

      Everyone knows it as the voice of Stephen Hawking. We also gave a courtesy system to Governor Pete Wilson back in 94/95 when he lost his voice while campaigning.

      Centigram is now long gone. It was bought by ADC Telecommunications at the height of the telco frenzy back in the summer of 2000 for $200M cash. ADC sold it to SS8 Networks a year later for ten cents on the dollar.

      Easy come, easy go. Technology marches on, soon to make all current forms of government obsolete... or die trying.

      Andrew

      Twelve $600 2Ghz Celeron systems circa 2003 have the same (or greater) rendering power as the $5M+ 300 100Mhz SuperSparc (SparcStation 20s) cluster used by Pixar to render Toy STory in 1995. I'm having fun with Povray... :-)

  • Time to move... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Em Emalb ( 452530 ) <ememalb AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:14PM (#5453684) Homepage Journal
    Since Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar System it has influenced our neighborhood second only to the Sun.

    Damnit, that's it. Jupiter and it's "friends" are creating too much havoc in this neighborhood, driving prices down, playing their music too damned loud. The police won't help, the astronomers seem to like it. Bah.

    I'm moving.

  • Europa's not the only possibility (Score:5, Informative)

    by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:15PM (#5453696) Journal
    Recent results from Galileo [nasa.gov] indicate that Callisto and Ganymede may also have vast oceans beneath their surfaces. So ruling out Europa doesn't mean that there is no life in the Jovian system.

    • Re:Europa's not the only possibility (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Soft ( 266615 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:33PM (#5453828)
      So ruling out Europa doesn't mean that there is no life in the Jovian system.

      Besides, I still can't see how the Europa torus could hamper life there. On the surface, yes, but that was pretty much already known. Life would be underwater, in an ocean tens of kilometers deep, the radiations won't penetrate that far. So don't rule out Europa.

      • Re:Europa's not the only possibility (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonvmous Coward ( 589068 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @08:02PM (#5454083)
        "Life would be underwater, in an ocean tens of kilometers deep, the radiations won't penetrate that far. So don't rule out Europa."

        Just wanted to bring up a point that's not considered very often: Life here on Earth exists in some VERY harsh environments. I don't think there's a natural area of Earth that's completely devoid of life. If you go underwater deep enough, you'll find life forms that exist without any light reaching them near some very hot thermal vents in the ocean floor.

        Frankly, I'd be surprised if an ocean bearing planet or moon didn't have life.
        • I don't think there's a natural area of Earth that's completely devoid of life.....you'll find life forms...near some very hot thermal vents in the ocean floor.

          What about away from the thermal vents?

          • I saw a show once where they left a camera down on the oceans floor, well away from the vents. The idea was to capture images of some kind of material, an algae I think, that got pushed around on the currents. To the scientists surprise at those depths and low temperatures there were many signs of life in the sand. Timelapse photography showed multiple organisms leaving trails on and under the sand.

            Additionally there are lichen that grow in freezing conditions and bacteria that live in the salt underneath iceflows.

        • Life here on Earth exists in some VERY harsh environments.

          True - but can life originate in such an environment? I believe life at least started in a more hospitable temperature/environment, then spread out to these tougher areas. It's kind of like how your engine runs in 4th gear, but you can't start it there, or it'll stall. Life can tolerate tough conditions once it gets a head start, but that might be asking a bit to start there.

          Of course, given what little we know of the early days of life...?

          • I think that's a fair hypothesis. I honestly have no idea. I don't know how fragile life was when it first started.

            Consider this, though: an oxygen atmosphere is very corrosive. This planet was quite UGLY when it first formed. Volcanic activity, etc. Plus, the planet was probably exposed to more radiation as well.

            Granted, this is not an area of study of mine, so take what I suggest with a grain of salt. (in other words, I'm not claiming those details are true facts...) If I'm even close to right, though, life formed despite the lack of comfort on this planet. It stands to reason that it might just form in other places too.

            At least that's my optimistic hope. :)

      • Exactly ! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Evil Pete ( 73279 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @08:05PM (#5454115) Homepage

        How is a radiation field going to penetrate kilometres of ice ... or even a few metres ? It can't. Timothy didn't even bother to read the original article which made NO mention of that conclusion .. he thought that up by himself.

        Europa still looks good. In fact it looks like the best place to me.

    • But Callisto and Ganymede are still in the radiation and ion belts. If you rule out Europe because of these, you rule out all of the Galilean satellites.

    • Re:Europa's not the only possibility (Score:4, Interesting)

      by RayBender ( 525745 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @08:50PM (#5454514) Homepage
      This is a bit of a repeat story, so the response is worth repeating: high levels of radiation do not preclude life, and in any case the idea was that Europan life would be under kilometers of ocean.

      It's amazing how much radiation certain bacteria [allbio.org] can survive, though..

      By the way, NASA is thinking about a new mission to the Galilean moons, called JIMO [nuclearspace.com]. Very exciting stuff - it's amazing how much more you can do with a nuclear propulsion stage.

  • Size? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What makes a satellite an acceptable .. satellite? Obviously there's a size issue but is there something else that makes a particular body labeled as a satellite (In the 'moon' sense)?

    • Re:Size? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mikerich ( 120257 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:30PM (#5453810)
      Essentially a satellite is just a body orbiting its the parent planet. So there is really no lower limit on size.

      At the moment it is just the resolution of our imaging techniques that limits what we call a satellite. There are bound to be hundreds, if not thousands of smaller bodies around Jupiter that we haven't spotted yet.

      Let's just hope that they fit future spacecraft with radar, or send a man up the main mast.

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

      • Essentially a satellite is just a body orbiting its the parent planet. So there is really no lower limit on size.

        It certainly seems like that is the case today, with many satellites being nothing more than large rocks, don't you think that definition is limited?

        I mean, would a hydrogen atom orbiting jupitor be considered an satellite? I don't think you meant to say that would be the case. There isn't a lower limit, but there should be.
  • I think I need a better telescope...

    Jupiter through a 3" telescope [uregina.ca].
    • That's seriously through a 3" telescope?

      What kind of optics? What kind of mount were you using? And what kind of capture device? How bad is the translation on Jupiter, anyway?

      Kind of makes me really want to go buy that 8" Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mounting again... *sigh*

      • Re:I can only see 3 moons though... (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Please, I know this is news for nerds, but please, lower your geekiness factor a tad!

      • Re:I can only see 3 moons though... (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I concur! I've got a Meade 90mm (4") and I don't get much better of a view. The bad thing is that I actually got to look through a large observatory telescope (Mt. Laguna, CA) once and it was all over for me after that (MMMMmmmmm Pleiades) .
        Now, I find looking through my scope pretty discouraging....well, at least I can see good shots of our moon....
      • Sorry, on second though, I think it was a 6" Newtonian telescope with a R.A. auto tracking motor. It was possibly a 12mm eyepiece, and the camera is a Canon Powershot S30 with 3X zoom and held against the eyepiece as steady as I could.

        I wonder how my post could be construed as "flaimbait"? Slightly offtopic, I conceed, but people interested in Jupiter news might like to see how it looked just last Thursday. You never know when it will just pack up and leave with all it's moons in tow.
    • According to XEphem, all four Galileans should be visible tonight with I think Europa and Callisto (or is it Io and Callisto) so close they'll be hard to separate). I'm unlucky enough to be in a badly, badly light-polluted area and so can't check it out myself.

  • What is a moon? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by $$$$$exyGal ( 638164 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:19PM (#5453728) Homepage Journal
    Specifically, my question is:
    How close does an natural astronomical body have to orbit a planet for it to be a moon?
    I know there has been much debate about what a planet is (the Pluto debate, etc), but what exactly is a moon? Would it be possible for an object to travel into the Solar System, and then whip around Jupiter, and then reenter the Solar System, etc (without actually getting that close to the sun). If it did that, then would it be a Jupiter-moon?

    • Re:What is a moon? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mikerich ( 120257 )
      Hmmm.

      Anything drifting between the stars is likely to have originated in a solar system somewhere. To have escaped from a star's gravity it would have needed an enormous velocity.

      It would need to shed almost all of this velocity before it could then enter an orbit around Jupiter or the Sun. It would have to do this by coming extraordinarily close to Jupiter or the Sun - I have no idea if it could survive such an encounter without being ripped to pieces by tidal forces - anyone?

      Needless to say we haven't seen anything entering the Solar System on such a trajectory, although it seems likely that huge numbers of small bodies were flung out of the Solar System in the period directly after planets were formed. So they might well be out there.

      Is there an astrophysicist in the house?

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

      • I have no idea if it could survive such an encounter without being ripped to pieces by tidal forces - anyone?

        Perhaps some of them were? If the parts of a moon got ripped apart, but stayed close enough apart the collective force of gravity from all the parts would pull them back together again. I'm reasonably certain it's possible.

        I think it'd be neat to see a computer simulation of this particular scenario, if it's possible.

    • Orbit the considering factor? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If orbit was the only factor then it seems as though pluto must be a planet, all of the rocks circling jupiter must be a planet, and halleys comet must be a planet to. It orbits around the sun. Very elliptically but it is still an orbit.

    • Re:What is a moon? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Guppy06 ( 410832 )
      "How close does an natural astronomical body have to orbit a planet for it to be a moon?"

      Close enough that it orbits the planet and not the system star. The sun is so much bigger than all the other planets (combined, even) that there is a definite line between those two.

      "(the Pluto debate, etc)"

      IMO, Pluto qualifies as a planet because it's held together by its own gravitational forces. Planetoids are held together solely by chemical forces (ie. just one big rock). Heck, Pluto even has its own atmosphere.

      "but what exactly is a moon?"

      Pluto and Charon confuse things a little bit in this reguard because it can almost be called a binary planet.

      "Would it be possible for an object to travel into the Solar System, and then whip around Jupiter, and then reenter the Solar System, etc (without actually getting that close to the sun)."

      No, because the sun is massive compared to Jupiter, like 1000 times more massive. An object would have to get extremely close to Jupiter (astronomically speaking) for it to notice Jupiter's pull more than the sun's. Note that all the other outer planets still orbit the sun, even though Jupiter is often much closer to each of them. Jupiter affects the orbit of these planets slightly, but those orbits are still around the sun.

      • scripsit Guppy06:

        IMO, Pluto qualifies as a planet because it's held together by its own gravitational forces. Planetoids are held together solely by chemical forces (ie. just one big rock). Heck, Pluto even has its own atmosphere.

        (I've been away from anything resembling planetary science for a while, so please be gentle with me if I'm talking nonsense...)

        I was under the impression that there are now thought to be many Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) quite like Pluto and similar to it in size... I suspect (though I don't know where the cutoff is) that at least some of these objects are also held together gravitationally -- which would then make them all planets, as I understand your definition. Would you agree? Or might there be a better way to distinguish planets from KBOs and other ``objects''?

      • A better definition would be simply anything that orbits the planet in an elliptic or circular path. Simply put,

        In the reference frame of the parent celestial body in question, if it is possible to describe a circle or ellipse which contains as its (or one of its, for an ellipse) foci a location inside the celestial body which describes the orbit of a natural satellite with good precision, that satellite is a moon.

        If, instead, one of the foci is the approximate center of mass of the body-satellite system, and outside the body and the satellite, the system is a binary planet.

        This makes the Moon a moon (the center-of-mass is way within the Earth), and makes Pluto/Charon a binary planet.

        Also, by that definition of planet, Ceres is a planet. I don't have a problem with this - but other people probably would. I think a couple other asteroids are planets by this definition as well.
    • There *is* a natural limit to how far out you can get and still be orbiting a planet, like Jupiter. That limit (roughly) is the Hill radius*, which goes like (m/3 M)^(1/3) a, where m is the mass of the planet, M is the mass of the Sun, a is the planet's orbital semi-major axis and 3 is 3. For Jupiter, this is about half of an astronomical unit. That's actually a pretty big sphere of influence, since Jupiter is only 5.2 AU from the Sun to start with.

      There are some who would call objects in the same helicentric orbit as the planet "moons". This class of objects includes the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter, as well as Earth's "second" moon. On the whole, however, astronomers seem to prefer to only consider something a moon if it really orbits the planet.

      * It's actually a eeensy bit more interesting than that. Prograde moons can't seem to orbit stably much further than half of a Hill radius from their planet, while retrograde moons can orbit up to about a full Hill radius.
    • Off topic, but I think Pluto is going to keep it's honorary planet title, even though it is a humongous Kuyper Belt Object. Oh yeah, it has a moon, Charon.

      Even if something is a captured asteroid, e.g. Amalthea, it's size seems to determine it's classification. It is a bit fuzzy, like defining what quality is. However, if you gave me specific examples, I could tell you moon/no moon.

      But yeah, leave Pluto alone...
    • A body is the satellite of any larger body located at one of the foci of its orbital ellipse. A moon is any natural satellite of a planet. A planet is a natural satellite of a star exactly equal to or larger in size than Pluto (according to this week's definition). A star is a large body that shines in visible light due to fusion (or former stars, like collapsars). Anything the size of a star that doesn't shine in the visible, or smaller than a planet which is a natural satellite of a star, is going to be hard to categorize with our current taxonomy.
      • It's probably better to define a star as anything which completes the PP chain (or better) at its core. All objects radiate in the visible... just... very very dimly.

        Plus brown dwarves (which progress through a portion of the PP chain) most likely radiate in the visible quite noticeably. I think (stress think) that we've seen a brown dwarf via non-reflected light.

        A brown dwarf would be any object which can complete a portion of, but not all of, the PP chain at its core.

  • Trip to Jupiter (Score:3, Funny)

    by rodney dill ( 631059 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:20PM (#5453734) Journal
    Well for 47 it really wasn't going to be worth the effort, but for 48 I think we better make the Trip. So Lets Go!


    "... but Capan, Capan, i can not Geet it oop, I got to have 30 minutes.. "

    (with apologies to Scotty)
  • of orbiting Verne Troyers

    and i wonder, is referring to Mike Myers films the way /. intends to attract now readers to science articles?

    solar system? is Jupiter to shortly become our second solar body, a'la 2010? c'mon, they're just satellites of a planet. I'd have thought a science poster to know the definition of a solar system.
    with that cleared up, could you inform us of meaning of the new astrological term "mini-me"?

  • 48??? (Score:4, Funny)

    by king_penguin_05 ( 582695 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:26PM (#5453782)
    48 is worthless!

    42 is the answer.

  • Speaking of Stephen Hawking (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:27PM (#5453786) Homepage
    He seems to have turned his attention from Astrophysics to producing gangsta rap [mchawking.com]

  • Picture of Jupiter (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rodney dill ( 631059 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:29PM (#5453802) Journal
    The astronomy picture of the day a few days ago had a nice moving picture [nasa.gov] of Jupiter with two moons. Where did the other 46 go?


    (feeble Karma saving attempt)
  • Why would this cast doubt on Europan life? If they exist they would be deep underwater.
    Unless you somehow convert Jupiter into a mini sun.

  • Synth Voice Sucks (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I cant understand that synthesized voice at all. Its worse than the old Sound Blaster 'Dr.Sbaitso', or whatever his name was. I've heard some recent artificial speech programs and they usually sound better than that. Has NASA simply not updated it in a decade or two??

    • Re:Synth Voice Sucks (Score:4, Funny)

      by man_ls ( 248470 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:33PM (#5453830)
      My Name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you.

      Say whatever is in your mind freely. Our conversation will be kept in strict confidance. Memory contents will be wiped after you leave.

      So, tell me about your problems.

      • I salute you sir for reminding me of Dr. Sbaitso.

      • My Name is Dr. Sbaitso. I am here to help you.

        Say whatever is in your mind freely. Our conversation will be kept in strict confidance. Memory contents will be wiped after you leave.

        So, tell me about your problems.

        >i don't have any pants

        You may think you don't have any pants, but it is only an illusion.

        >it's true, i have no pants

        Just now you were talking about no pants, tell me more about that.

        >What? uh - ok, seriously, though, i need some pants.

        Don't talk dirty.

        >quit

  • Ha! (Score:2, Funny)

    by maximillianarturo ( 655330 )
    48 moons? Ha! In highschool I was big enough to [insert fatjoke here]!!
    • 48 moons? Ha! In highschool I was big enough to [insert fatjoke here]!!

      Shouldn't that read

      48 moons? Ha! In highschool I set the record with 51.
    • 48 moons? Ha!

      No. You got it totally wrong. It should be:

      "48, 48 moons! Ha, ha, ha..."
  • I remember a couple of days in a comment that Bush approved funding for a NASA project that focused on a new form of propulsion in order shorted space travel times. http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/nuclear_po wer_030117.html (Sorry I don't know how to do a link). Anyway, my thought is develop this and use it to propel a probe to get out to jupiter and see exactly what is going on. And, of course, send people to mars :)
  • The United States starts world war 3, civilization is destroyed. Some star charts (showing names...) and 2010 (the book) survive. Except for in this new century of 2100s, they take the book literally, and think that God owns Europa and forbids you to go there. Edan is not for you, my children. hehe

  • it's "Hawking", not "Hawkings" (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    why do people always fuck this up?

  • Mini solar system? (Score:4, Funny)

    by WankersRevenge ( 452399 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:45PM (#5453934)
    thus bringing its mini solar system to 48 total Considering our solar system is only 9 . . . doing you think Jupiter going overkill to compensenate in other areas which may be...um, lacking?

  • It's not "Hawkings"... (Score:3)

    by 1984 ( 56406 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:46PM (#5453946)
    ...it's "Hawking".

    No, I know it's not important. So I'll add an "s" to the end of your name, sometimes. It won't bother you because, after all, it's not important that it's actually correct, just that I know who you are.

  • Jupiter to moons: GET IN MY BELLY!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by macshune ( 628296 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @07:47PM (#5453951) Journal
    (REUTERS) JUPITER--"C'mere, I wanna eat ye! I'm bigger than you and I'm stronger than you, I'm higher on the food chain!" Jupiter announced today, shortly before it embarked on a moon-gobbling smorgasbord adventure.
    "By jove, I think he's mad," Europa said through a spokesperson today.
    The other 47 moons did not return our calls.
  • Maybe NASA or the ISS can raise some funds by auctioning them off. Would probably wind up with corporations winning.

    Could your grandchildren be colonists on Pepsi? Or DiamlerChrysler?

    • Actually, what'd be really cool is if NASA got these corporations to sponsor missions.

      Think about it: a moon mission. They could put all kinds of logos on the shuttle, have real-time telemetry data on the top of your screen while you watch, and the mission could be called something like the MBNA 480000.

      OK... so obviously I'm excited about the race this weekend...
  • Maybe they'll find that big black rock orbiting Jupiter that'll turn it into the second sun...or maybe Bush and co. will try to destory it since that would make solar power so much more effective...

  • Recent Moon Additions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FosterSJC ( 466265 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @08:05PM (#5454113)
    For those interested, here are the slashdot threads for the last two moon additions to Jupiter:

    1. New Moon of Jupiter Discovered [slashdot.org]

    S/2002 J1- Catchy name, eh? Beats the hell out of say, Europa or Ganymede. Incidentally, this ran on 12/28/02.

    2. Jupiter's 11 New Moons [slashdot.org]

    This one ran on 5/17/02.
    • "S/2002 J1- Catchy name, eh? Beats the hell out of say, Europa or Ganymede."

      That won't be its permanent name. All bodies are given temporary names of that kind until the Internation Astronomer's Union confirms their permanent names. Besides some slight beaurcratic overhead intended to keep astronomical nomenclature standardized, this is also because they want to be sure it's really a new object.
  • Look at it, before we know it, Juptier's moons will have moons.. and those will have moons.. and so on and so forth.

    One question though? What constitutes a moon? Because they say the earth only has one moon, but it has hundreds of orbiting satilites and MILLIONS of pieces of space dust circling it, so really, I think it's time to quit discovering the moons of jupiter. one last comment: how many moons does SATURN have?!?!

  • That's no moon (Score:3, Funny)

    by StormyWeather ( 543593 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @08:32PM (#5454384) Homepage
    It's a SPACE STATION!!!! [amazon.com]

  • ion cloud is irrelevant (Score:3, Interesting)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @09:12PM (#5454676)
    Any life on Europe is likely going to be miles deep under water. An ion cloud and radiation hitting the surface is not going to make any difference there. So, the chances for Europan life are as good or as slim as they have ever been. However, the radiation may make exploration more difficult.

  • fact check BEFORE posting.... (Score:4, Informative)

    by barakn ( 641218 ) on Thursday March 06, 2003 @09:38PM (#5454865)
    its ion cloud today seems to spell doom for what Sir Arthur C. Clarke indicated, is another reason to avoid probing life on Europa

    ceejayoz writes [slashdot.org] "A newly discovered gas cloud around Jupiter, created by ion radiation hitting the surface of Europa, has cast doubt on possible life on the moon.

    The ion cloud is completely irrelevant to the chances of finding life deep in the oceans of Europa. The Earth itself is surrounded by belts of ionized radiation. Ions bombard the atmosphere hard enough for it to visibly glow near the magnetic poles. And yet life thrives in just about every Earth environment that isn't molten rock. And the original posted link [newscientist.com] about the Jovian ion torus never mentioned any hazards to Europan life.

    • What, you're going to believe _scientists_ over the opinions of the Slashdot rumor mill? :)
    • The ion cloud is completely irrelevant to the chances of finding life deep in the oceans of Europa. The Earth itself is surrounded by belts of ionized radiation.

      Exactly, it just increases the chances that life on Europa will have super-powers. The Fantastic Four knows all about that. Sure, they have super-powers now but all-in-all they'd rather they didn't, especially Ben Grimm.

  • wow (Score:1)

    by kilonad ( 157396 )
    48 moons? I never would have pictured Jupiter being catholic. ;)

  • well crap... (Score:5, Funny)

    by frozencesium ( 591780 ) on Friday March 07, 2003 @12:33AM (#5455958) Journal
    why not take advantage of the "mini solar system" and just ignite jupiter and turn sol into a binary system?

    2 stars = more sunlight to grow crops, power solar vehicals, etc...

    ah crap...i've been watching too much stargate SG1...

    -frozen
    • I haven't seen the show, but it sounds like the writers have been reading too much Arthur C. Clarke. He's got fr1st p0st on that concept.
  • That voice is a standard synthesized voice, probably one of the first. I remember working with a DecTalk voice synth box in the mid 1980s, back when you had do it all in hardware. It had that exact same voice "Hawking" voice, along with a "female" version. After a ROM upgrade, we had a choice, if memory serves, of 8 voices with labels like "child" and "frail old man".
  • You've got it all wrong. It's All these worlds are belong to us, except Europa. Take off no zigs there.

  • BBC: The BBC is reporting that the largest foul-up in astronomy history was discovered today. It began when one scientist, while observing Jupiter for its weekly new-moon count was overheard saying 'Oh shit.' This lead to an extensive investigation which revealed the problem. The telescope's chief of staff summed up the problem by simply stating 'Well, it seems Jupiter only has 16 moons. We cleaned the lens on the scope and it came back all covered in dust. Oops?'

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