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A survey searching for objects in the Kuiper Belt has found two undiscovered moons of Jupiter. Jupiter now has 69 known moons:
Until recently the cataloged satellites totaled 67 in number. But only the innermost 15 of these orbit Jupiter in a prograde sense (in the direction of the planet's spin). The rest are retrograde, and are likely captured objects - other pieces of the solar system's solid inventory that strayed into Jupiter's gravitational grasp.
That population of outer moons is mostly small stuff, only a few are 20-60 kilometers in diameter, most are barely 1-2 kilometers in size, and increasingly difficult to spot. Now astronomers Scott Sheppard, David Tholen, and Chadwick Trujillo have added two more; bringing Jupiter's moon count to 69.
These additions are also about 1-2 km in size, and were spotted in images that were part of a survey for much more distant objects out in the Kuiper Belt. Jupiter just happened to be conveniently close in the sky at the time. The moons are S/2016 J1 and S/2017 J1, and are about 21 million km and 24 million km from Jupiter.
The moons are also known as Jupiter LIV and Jupiter LIX, and are members of the Pasiphae group. They are estimated to be about 3 and 2 km in diameter respectively.
Also at Popular Mechanics.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday June 15 2017, @06:03PM
Because the new definition is silly. It's just designed to point out that 8 planets are traditional, and avoid having to refer to dozen of newer ones in the same breath.
Mercury is smaller than a few moons, Jupiter is its own mini-system, there's maybe a big one hiding pretty far but we'll find it soon, and who knows how many others? What's the cosmological point of having decided that 8 are more equal than the others? How can you put the Earth ans Mars in the same category as Jupiter, when they're more similar to Pluto?
I like the barycenter definition, which simply and mathematically classifies planets vs binary systems vs moons (for gravity-shaped objects).
It's just a name. Why did are we even having this discussion? Who woke up one day and decided something was wrong with calling all the new ones planets? I want a solar system with more planets than I can name!