New Moons Of Jupiter

On July 16th 2018, a team of astronomers at Carnegie Institute for Science, announced that they have discovered twelve more moons orbiting the planet Jupiter. The discovery of the new moons brings Jupiter's total of moons to a whopping 79. Dr. Scott S. Shepard who led the team said that the new moons were first discovered in the spring of 2017. At that time the search was on for the much theorized planet nine, believed to exist somewhere in the Kuiper belt.

Nine of the newly discovered moons orbit Jupiter in an outer group that move in retrograde motion, which is in the opposite direction in which the planet rotates.These moons are believed to what remains of some larger objects that broke up over time. Two of the new moons are located in an inner group that orbit in prograde motion, or with Jupiter's rotation. They too are believed to be pieces of larger objects, or possible moons that use to orbit the planet.

The twelfth moon is considered an, "odd ball," because it orbits out where the retrograde moons orbit, but in prograde motion. This means that it will at time cross the orbit of the other new moons. Dr Shepard said, "This is an unstable situation." He also said, "Head on collisions would quickly break apart and grind the objects down to dust." The team has decided to name this moon, Valetudo after the Roman god Jupiter's granddaughter, goddess of health and hygiene.