Accidental discovery of 12 Jupiter's new moons

12 New moons of Jupiter discovered

Team of astronomers from Hawaii and Arizona has reported the discovery of 12 moons around Jupiter in addition to 67 moons which were discovered earlier. After this majestic discovery the total count of the Jupiter's moon reached to 79 which is most for any other planet./

The discovery of this moons were not planned but they were accidentally discovered while looking for the objects on the fringes of the solar system. In this report, astronomers confirmed that two were discovered earlier and 10 more were discovered on Tuesday. One of these moon called oddball as named by the astronomers due to the unusual orbit around the Jupiter.

The newly identified moons were too small ranges from 1 km to 2 km. But the Jupiter is a home to the largest moon in the solar system Ganymede having diameter about 5,268 km. These team were led by astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington who identified twelve small Jovian moons.

Researcher conclude that these moons were formed in the earlier stage of formation of the solar system but they were probably captured by the Jupiter's strong gravitational pull. Researcher thinks that, these moons may be intermediate between rocky asteroids and icy moons. Because they are probably half ice and half rock.

Valetudo is named for the odd moon which have unusual orbit around Jupiter. It was named after the Roman god Jupiter's great-granddaughter - the goddess of health and hygiene. It spins normal like other moons but it sometimes spins in a wrong way. It have probability of getting collided with other objects. It may have collided with many objects as predicted by Scott Sheppard. From this discovery he concludes that, other planets may have undiscovered moons.

Images taken with Carnegie's 6.5-meter Magellan telescope at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Lines point to Valetudo

Credit: Carnegie Institution for Science.

References:
[1] Astronomers accidentally discover 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter (18-July-2018) India Today.
[2] Image Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moons_of_Jupiter on 19-July-2018.
[3] Astronomers discovered 10 new moons of Jupiter (17-July-2018). Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/17/17576408/jupiter-moons-carnegie-blanco-telescope-astronomy-iau on 19-July-2018.
[4] One 'Oddball' among 12 new found moons discovered orbiting Jupiter (17-July-2018) . Retrieved from https://www.space.com/41180-oddball-moon-orbits-jupiter.html on 19-July-2018.