Why Jupiter's Tally of Moons Keeps Going Up and Up (npr.org) 30
Scientists have spotted 12 more moons around Jupiter, adding to an already-huge number that just seems to grow and grow. From a report: There's so many moons around this gas giant planet that astronomer Scott Sheppard struggles to keep track. "With this new haul, we're up to, I believe, 92 ... actually, I have to check that," he says, leaning over to type into his computer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth and Planets Laboratory in Washington, DC. " Yeah, so 92 is the number that we have right now." His team is currently tracking some more moons that, once confirmed over the next year or two, should put Jupiter over 100.
There's good reason to keep looking for more moons, Sheppard says: If one was found in a convenient orbit, a spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter could fly close by and take a peek, letting scientists figure out what the moonlet is made of. That's important because Jupiter's small, outer moons are fairly mysterious. Astronomers suspect that they are remnants of the original building material that got used to form the solar system's biggest planet. Sheppard has been discovering new moons around Jupiter for over two decades, leading some colleagues to jokingly call him "Galileo," after the famous astronomer who first discovered that Jupiter had moons in 1610. Every few years, Sheppard and his fellow astronomers take advantage of better technology and bigger telescopes to add more moons to the tally. At the moment, Jupiter holds the record for the most known moons, beating out Saturn, which has 83.
There's good reason to keep looking for more moons, Sheppard says: If one was found in a convenient orbit, a spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter could fly close by and take a peek, letting scientists figure out what the moonlet is made of. That's important because Jupiter's small, outer moons are fairly mysterious. Astronomers suspect that they are remnants of the original building material that got used to form the solar system's biggest planet. Sheppard has been discovering new moons around Jupiter for over two decades, leading some colleagues to jokingly call him "Galileo," after the famous astronomer who first discovered that Jupiter had moons in 1610. Every few years, Sheppard and his fellow astronomers take advantage of better technology and bigger telescopes to add more moons to the tally. At the moment, Jupiter holds the record for the most known moons, beating out Saturn, which has 83.
Huh? (Score:1)
Why Jupiter's Tally of Moons Keeps Going Up and Up
Gee. we'll have to think on that one a bit.
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Why Jupiter's Tally of Moons Keeps Going Up and Up
Gee. we'll have to think on that one a bit.
That's no moon. It's a natural satellite.
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The answer is a bit of a two-parter.
A) "Because this guy keeps looking for them"
and
B) "Telescopes keep getting better"
How many moons ... (Score:2)
before they start bashing into each other ? OK: I know that Jupiter is large and that there is a lot of room around it, but many moons means gravitational interaction and disturbed orbits ...
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My honey my baby, don't put my love upon no shelf
She said don't hand me no lines and keep your orbit to yourself
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It's a spacestation.
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Enough to make a decent set of rings, I would guess...
we cant have a moon tally gap (Score:2)
Captured asteroids. Whatever. (Score:2)
Re: Captured asteroids. Whatever. (Score:2)
Re: Captured asteroids. Whatever. (Score:5, Informative)
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Current theory is
Has anyone thought to ask the beings running our simulation what kind of backstory they came up with for the moon? That would be most canonical.
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Because Occam's Razor... ...is what I was employing! :-)
Mooninote (Score:2)
Minature dogs are offended (Score:2)
Any moon smaller than earth moon is not a moon
-Pluto votes in favor
In related news ... (Score:5, Funny)
"There just seem to be more and more of them. In spite of the natives propensity for shooting them down."
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Turtle moons all the way down (Score:1)
Um, Galileo was not treated very well because those in power didn't like his conclusions. Not sure I'd want that moniker.
As far as moon count, there are probably moons of every size category all the way down to pebbles and dust. Jupiter even has a thin ring. Thus, as telescopes and probes get better resolution, they'll find ever smaller moons, and that can go on all they down t
Alternate title (Score:2)
Empire owned manufacturing plant located.
Definition Change Needed (Score:2)
That would filter out all the captured asteroids from moon counts.
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Maybe they need to change the definition of a moon
That was a disaster the last time they did this.
As telescopes massively improved in a short time, and we discovered millions of planets equal or larger in size to pluto, they sub-grouped "planet" into a few types of planets including the new "dwarf planet" category, which erupted into fierce opposition from laymen thinking "dwarf planet" wasn't a "planet" for some reason.
Its quite obvious (Score:2)
Obviously too many moons (Score:5, Funny)
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This is a nice satire of how congress acts...on both sides of the aisle.
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I remember telling my father many years ago about Jupiter's many moons. He replied "Why would God put so many moons there when there's nobody there to see their light?"
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He would have gotten bonus points if he had used SNOBOL as programming language, after all it kind of rhymes with snow - ball.