Are there moons orbiting jupiter

Jupiter has 53 named moons and another 26 awaiting official names. Combined, scientists now think Jupiter has 79 moons. There are many interesting moons orbiting the planet, but the ones of most scientific interest are the first four moons discovered beyond Earth—the Galilean satellites. Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Io Europa might be the best place to look for environments where life could exist.

Europa Ganymede is the largest satellite in our solar system. It is larger than Mercury and Pluto, and three-quarters the size of Mars. Larsen, B. Marsden, R. McMillan, J. Montani, J. Scotti, T. Scott Sheppard. Reference to Department:. Earth and Planets Laboratory.

News Topic:. Neighborhood Lecture Series, D. Astronomy Lecture Series, CA. Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are the so-called "terrestrial" or "inner" planets while Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have been classified as "gas giants," also known as "outer planets. The size gap between those factions is quite considerable; Although Uranus is the smallest outer planet, it's still 15 times more massive than Earth, the largest of the inner planets.

None of the other planets can compete with Jupiter in terms of sheer bulk, however. You'd need more than duplicates of our puny home world to equal Jupiter's colossal mass. It's an absolute monster. Now, as Isaac Newton observed, there's a positive correlation between the mass of an object and the strength of its gravitational field. Because the gas giants are so massive, they're able to attract more satellites. But that's not the only reason why planets like Jupiter have such large moon collections.

Our solar system's gas giants are relatively far away from the sun. In contrast, some stars have massive, Jupiter-like planets called "hot Jupiters. Imagine if Saturn switched places with Mercury. A paper by French astronomer Fathi Namouni argues that hot Jupiters have few, if any, moons.

These planets are thought to originate in distant parts of their solar systems and then migrate inwards. Along the way, their moons get caught in a game of celestial tug of war. Gas giants may be big, but stars are much bigger.

As such, they've got far stronger gravitational fields. So, when a hot Jupiter gets too close to its star, the star will eventually steal its moons. Distance offsets this ability.