I Need My Space

Today, astronomers announced the discovery of 12 new moons around Jupiter. Inverse writer Matthew Phelan sat down with the Carnegie Institute’s Scott S. Sheppard who led the team that located the Jovian moons to tell us what this means for our solar systems and why one of the moons is especially odd. Two of the new dozen were uncovered in the spring of 2017 by Sheppard’s team bringing Jupiter’s moon count to 69 (nice), which means we now know there are 79 moons orbiting Jupiter. Questions Include: How did we find these new Jovian moons and why was it a serendipitous finding? What is the criteria that determines whether or not an object is a moon? How many new moons around Jupiter did we find? How do we detect new moons? What are Trojan asteroids? What are prograde and retrograde moons? What is this new “oddball” moon Valetudo and why is it different? Will there be more moons discovered around Jupiter? Is there a minimum size for a moon? What do retrograde and prograde objects tell us about the formation of ou