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Space Science

New Satellites of Jupiter Discovered 105

Posted by CmdrTaco from the break-out-cigars-jupiter's-a-daddy dept.
dss902 writes "The discovery of 18 new satellites of Jupiter, bringing the total of known Jupiter satellites to 58 were made using the world's two largest digital cameras at the Subaru (8.3 meter diameter) and Canada-France-Hawaii (3.6 meter diameter) telescopes atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Recoveries were performed at the University of Hawaii 2.2 meter with help from Yanga Fernandez and Henry Hsieh also from the University of Hawaii. Brian Marsden of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics performed the orbit fitting for the new satellites. More info here." We ran a story on the first eight, but now... eighteen.
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New Satellites of Jupiter Discovered More

New Satellites of Jupiter Discovered

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  • Subaru? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by The Original Yama ( 454111 )
    Subaru make telescopes now? I thought they just made cars.

    • Re:Subaru? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by s20451 ( 410424 )
      I don't know if the telescope is associated with the company. However, in Japanese, "Subaru" is the name for the the Pleiades [pppl.gov] star cluster.

      • Re:Subaru? (Score:3, Informative)

        by The Dobber ( 576407 )
        Actually its owned by the Japanese goverment. As I recall, the prime contractor was Mitsubishi. That was a long time ago (10+ years) though, so I might be wrong. Big ass piece of glass though. 30+ tons, shipping box weighed another 30 tons.

        Little background on the scope

        http://www.corning.com/discovery_center/subaru_i nd ex_content_pop.asp

      • In addition, the logo you see on all Subaru cars is a set of stars - a stylized version of the constellation itself.

    • Re:Subaru? (Score:5, Funny)

      by worst_name_ever ( 633374 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @10:56AM (#5673328)
      Yes, they make a telescope, and it transfers power from the moons that slip to the moons that grip!

  • Great! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Treeluvinhippy ( 545814 ) <liquidsorceryNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday April 06, 2003 @10:29AM (#5673220)
    Some new worlds to explore with my starship made from a floppy!

  • To think.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Original Yama ( 454111 ) <lists.sridharNO@SPAMdhanapalan.com> on Sunday April 06, 2003 @10:33AM (#5673236) Homepage
    ... that all this time Jupiter has been mooning us 58 times simultaneously. That cheeky devil!

  • Other uses for the powerful technology? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mattygfunk1 ( 596840 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @10:33AM (#5673241)
    Would you rather have powerful telescopes pointed at Jupiter looking for more moons, or looking nearby for potential "dinosaur style" human-killing asteriods?

    I know which I would prefer.

    ___
    bump bump bump cheap web site hosting [cheap-web-...ing.com.au]

    • IANAA, but I thought that you don't really want to use the most powerful telescopes for spoting comets and asteroids. You want something that can see a relatively large area of the sky, and when you spot something moving, you zoom in with the "big guns".

    • And then? (Score:1, Flamebait)

      by GeekDork ( 194851 )

      It'd be really great to know when such a thing is coming. But what should be done if one was coming? Even if it was possible to nuke the thing away (which is highly improbable), I could still understand every government who wanted to keep its nukes at home for now with the U.policeS.ofA throwing their stupid weight around.

      And despite all recent attempts, my karma is still excellent.

    • So we can do what? Look at it while it comes down on us? While it'd be nice to know, if there's nothing we can do about it, knowing serves no function, and would be a waste of resources, I think.
      • Oh come on! Have major hollywood crapfests taught you nothing. There are at least TWO courses of action assuming we get a heads up on the imminent impact of a life-ending asteroid. 1: We send oilmen into space to blow it up.(Armageddon) 2: We stoically stand on the beach and wait to die.(Deep Impact) I mean, just imagine how long it will take congress to decide which we're supposed to do. Advance warning would be quite useful.
    • I'd rather hear about a new moon on jupiter before I die.

      We're all going to die someday. I'd rather not know about it before hand and be disappoint by my government one last time.
    • How about telescopes spotting new moons containing man-eating dinosaurs. Let's just look for those!

      OTOH I bet we COULD do more than one thing at a time.

    • Much of the risk from comets comes from short period comets that whip around the Sun in a few tens of years. And guess which planet produces short term comets?

      Yup, Jupiter.

      A comet comes in from the Oort cloud and makes a close approach to Jupiter. Jupiter's gravity turns that highly elliptical orbit into a much less elliptical orbit with its aphelion somewhere around the orbit of Jupiter. That comet then spends its time whizzing around the inner Solar System - which includes us.

      Having a look at Jupite

    • Apparently it's a big-ass sky.

    • Lets see...

      They went to a small area of known volume and gravity conditions where noone had been able to see small asteroid-type bodies, and promptly went and found 18 of them.

      Sounds like a perfect proof of concept test,which is then followed by calibration, and is then followed by upscale to production.

      The techniques being developed here are *exactly* what you are asking them to do.

  • Do any of the new ones look like black slabs? (Score:4, Funny)

    by happyhippy ( 526970 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @10:34AM (#5673245)
    In the proportion 1:3:9?

  • You mean (Score:3, Funny)

    by pardasaniman ( 585320 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @10:36AM (#5673256) Journal
    You mean the Canada-Freedom-Hawaii!! Silly Americans! Tricks are for kids!
    • Hehe, as a Canadian I was expecting something more along the lines of Freedom-Freedom-Hawaii.
      • Hehe, as a Canadian I was expecting something more along the lines of Freedom-Freedom-Hawaii.

        No, most of Canada can stay. It's just Freedom Canada that has got to go.

        Darn Freedomians.

        TTFN

  • Those guys a start a company (Score:5, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @10:38AM (#5673267) Homepage Journal
    Jovian satellite naming services Inc

    Get your own Jupiter moon NOW! We offer to name any newly discovered satellite of Jupiter with a word of your choice. Rates starting at just $100/moon! For satellites up to a diameter of 500 km we charge only $100, and $50 extra for every 200km of additional size. You can pre-book a name for yet to be discovered satellites up to 3 years in advance! We have exclusive contracts with international astrophysical society. So hurry!!

  • The dept line says "jupiter's-a-daddy"..

    Who is the mommy? Mother Earth of course! Why not Venus? Although hot, she's deadly.

    The only problem is that Earth has things that can be transferred from planet to planet.. humans! A cosmic STD if you will.

  • Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @10:44AM (#5673290)
    What's the difference between a moon and a lump of rock? Why catalog rocks at Jupiter and let all the rocks in Saturn's rings go uncatalogued? Where is the dividing line?
    • Notice they said "Satellites" not moons. More or less anything in orbit of a planet counts as a Satellite. Earth has two or three natural satellites (including the moon) and several thousand arteficial satellites, IIRC.

    • Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Theodore Logan ( 139352 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @11:08AM (#5673373)
      First off, note that the write up mentions only satellites and says nothing about moons.

      But as for your question: historically there hasn't been a need for a hard definition, and hence there isn't one. At this point in time, however, with 118 official moons in the solar system and a whole bunch of candidates, lines need to be drawn.

      You may want to read this article [space.com] for details.

    • Re:Why? (Score:2, Informative)

      by imsabbel ( 611519 )
      well, it is true that these new moons arent very large, but saturns rings are 99% little more then dust (the roche-threshold is a bitch). There are a few very large "rocks" in the rings, but they are reckognized as moons.
    • > What's the difference between a moon and a lump of rock?

      What's the difference between a planet and a lump of rock? Nothing except scale. Take into account Pluto & the Kiuper belt. There are rocks bigger than Pluto orbiting the Sun but aren't classified as planets. It's only because humans have a tendency (arguably, a "need") to classify everything that we argue about if something is a planet, moon, rock, whatnot. They're all rocks (some of them very large rocks, mind you), regardless of size

  • definition (Score:2, Interesting)

    by VanillaCoke420 ( 662576 )
    What is a moon? We don't even have a definition for a planet yet.
    • A moon is when you bend over and show Uranus [ucar.edu] to someone.
    • I thought a planet was just some object that orbits a star.
      • When is it a planet and when is it a star? As far as I understand, there is no established standard for what exactly is a planet. If a planet is "some object that orbits a star", then the Kuiper belt objects, asteroids, Oort objects and comets would all be planets? There is a discussion going on whether or not Pluto is a planet or a KBO, for example.

  • Strange (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @11:11AM (#5673389)
    to think that given the size of the universe we are still discovering things that are practically on top of us. Makes you wonder what else is out there.

  • Thanks God (Score:2, Funny)

    by BohKnower ( 586304 )
    I always use Jupiter's satellites to name my servers and I was getting out of options.
  • Well, it's only appropriate that Jupiter have such a harem of consorts. Any idea what they'll be named?
  • It says satellites, not moons, big difference. It was my understanding that jupiter, along with all of the gas giants, each had inumerable satellites, they're called rings.
    • In most documentation I've been reading (including from the Nasa and some simplified scientific readings) 'moon' is used as a synonim, a simpler word to explain quickly what is a satellite... are they really 2 different words?

  • I Propose a New Icon (Score:3, Insightful)

    by use_compress ( 627082 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @11:55AM (#5673560) Journal
    If scientists want to find 100 moons orbiting Jupiter, there are going to be many Slashdot articles on new Jovian moons. Thus, I propose we create a new icon for all of these articles.

  • Galileo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dsfd ( 622555 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @12:23PM (#5673686)
    Galileo discovered only four but this (among other reasons) was enough for Roman Church to prosecute him. The existence of objects moving arround Jupiter was a serious problem for the official geocentric model of the universe, and therefore, a challenge to the authority of the Church. Only recently, the Pope apologized for that.

    I wonder what would they think of the existence of 58 Jovian satellites, just to mention one of the wonders that science has discovered.. Can we reach conclusions from the past history and apply them to the present ?

    • Can we reach conclusions from the past history and apply them to the present?

      No. The heretical principles of Separation of Church and State and Free Speech must not be allowed to threaten the authority of the church.

    • Only recently, the Pope apologized for that.

      "Oops. Wrong guy. Or wrong reasons. Or wrong methods. Or concepts. Whatever. Sorry."

      Every church is a political organization fighting to have more followers, who is willing to pay more money for support the curch or whose mind is desired by the big paying guy. Every religion is a tool of such mind control and it is usually a very dogmatized philosophy (with God faith most likely).

      Our souls is a very internal matter and it does not require any political infr

  • The article says that the orbits they'v calculated are only preliminary. I wonder if, when other gravitational fields are taken into acount, they're really closed around Jupiter. The satellites are orbiting backward, which sounds a lot like they used to orbit the sun forwards a little clsoer iun than Jupiter.

    I wouldn't be surprised if they become sun-orbiting asteroids within 100 years.
    • If the satellites are in retrograde orbits they're certainly captures from somewhere.

      Retrograde orbits are not stable in the long term. The tidal effects of Jupiter will cause the satellite's orbit to decay; the satellite will drift ever-closer to the planet with an accelerating rate of decay.

      Jupiter has got 'em good and hard and will eventually pull them apart.

      But not for a few million years.

      Damn, I evolved too early!

      Best wishes,
      Mike.

      • Yep, they're almost certainly captured. But their lifetimes are probably a lot longer than you think. Tidal effects depend on the mass of the moon creating the tidal bulge and the proximity to Jupiter. Small, distant moons don't raise much in the way of tides and feel little in the way of higher order gravitation moments from Jupiter. So they don't evolve tidal very quickly at all. I'd guess that it would take billions of years to get them in close to Jupiter. In fact, the effects of other bodies (moo

  • I wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Sunday April 06, 2003 @03:33PM (#5674519) Homepage
    ...how long it will take for these moons to appear in Celestia. [shatters.net]

    Quaoar and 2002 MN were added only a few days after being discovered.

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