The Moons of Jupiter

Source: New Moons

The Solar System is home to four giant gaseous planets named Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus. These gas giants have many satellites due to their mass and subsequent gravitational pull. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and has fascinated humans for hundreds of years due to the large amount of moons that it has. There are currently 67 known moons orbiting Jupiter. The four largest moons were discovered by the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei in the year 1610. These large moons are called Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto and have distinct characteristics such as Europa being considered the smoothest in the solar system and Ganymede being the largest moon in the solar system. These 4 commonly known moons make up only 6% of the total moons that orbit around Jupiter. The other 63 moons are smaller and were discovered over the years by various scientists making the discovery of Jupiter’s moons a long-time group effort.

Jupiter’s moons are arranged into 3 groups. These three groups are the inner moons, galilean moons and outer moons. The inner moons, also referred to as the Amalthea group, are the ones that orbit close to Jupiter. The outer moons are the furthest from Jupiter and are made of smaller objects such as asteroids. These smaller moons (all under 3km) have wackier orbits than the inner and galilean moons because they are experiencing less of Jupiter’s gravitational force. Last year, scientists accidentally discovered 12 new moons orbiting around Jupiter while searching for another planet. One of these moons named Valetudo is particularly interesting due to it having prograde motion yet occasionally crossing retrograde moons due to its orbital incline. By studying the moons of Jupiter and likewise discovering new ones, scientists are better able to understand how the solar system came to be.