Amateur Astronomer Discovers New Jupiter Satellite

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An amateur astronomer discovered a previously unknown moon orbiting around Jupiter. 

After studying old images of the planet captured by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in 2003, amateur astronomer Kai Ly noticed three potential moons in the images taken by the telescope, two of which disappeared, indicating that the remaining moon was indeed orbiting Jupiter as it continued to appear time and time again. 

“I’m proud to say that this is the first planetary moon discovered by an amateur astronomer!” said Li, commenting on the discovery. 

Jupiter has a large gravitational field that allows it to capture space debris in its orbit and has at least 79 moons in its orbit. It is estimated that it may have tens or even hundreds of moons orbiting it, and the number continues to grow.

This latest discovery by Ly is the newest addition to the Carme group of Jovian satellites. According to NASA, the Carme are satellites that orbit Jupiter in "the opposite direction of the planet's rotation;" "their orbits are also eccentric (elliptical rather than circular) and highly inclined with respect to Jupiter's equatorial plane."

Ride With Juno As It Flies Past the Solar System's Biggest Moon and Jupiter https://t.co/PwGnJEmybx pic.twitter.com/zDWAAixqPX

— SpaceRef (@SpaceRef) July 15, 2021

"With a mean radius of 14 miles (23 km), Carme is the largest member of the Carme group," says NASA. It was probably an asteroid that "suffered a collision, which broke off a number of pieces, either before or after being captured by Jupiter's gravity. Those pieces became the other 16 moons in the Carme group. Carme still retains 99 percent of the total mass of the group."