Here at TudoCelular, we usually bring you a multitude of rankings that show how disputed a market such as performance in AnTuTu, consoles and even operating systems for TVs, PCs and smartphones can be. However, one in particular has been surprising due to changes in recent years: the number of moons a planet has.
Going back a little in time (and going to 2019), we see here that a group of researchers had discovered 20 new planets for Saturn, which guaranteed it the leadership at the time over Jupiter, reaching a total of 82 two moons identified so far .
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Now, already in 2023, a new update of the curious ranking reaches the public with the finding of 12 more moons for Jupiter (which until then was glued to the vice-leadership), causing its accumulated to become 92 moons, that is , 10 more than Saturn’s current marker.
According to information provided by ‘Sky & Telescope’, all new moons discovered are small and distant, with a complete return of more than 340 days to happen. Of these, 9 are among the 71 called “ultraperipheral”, with an orbit greater than 550 days, with the capture of these moons by Jupiter being imagined due to their retrograde orbits, in the opposite direction to the inner moons.
Not least: five of all retrograde moons are more than 8 kilometers and, according to Scott Sheppard (Carnegie Institute for Science), the smallest moons formed during collisions that fragmented into larger objects.
Another curious point in this race is the possibility of cuts that can change the result. One example is to consider size for counting moons on each planet. If this were a metric and considered, for example, moons larger than 3 kilometers, Saturn would still lead not only in total but also, for having “more moons than the rest of the solar system”, according to Brett Gladman (University of British Columbia, Canada).
In addition to the curiosity with the count, knowing and knowing how many moons are available and their itineraries will allow a gain of information for flyby missions of a future mission with special focus on the progressive moons, being already known that the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) from the European Space Agency is due to take place in April, while NASA’s Europa Clipper is scheduled for the end of 2024 and a Chinese mission, considered for the 2030s.