Why does jupiter has 63 moons

VIPER is the first resource-mapping mission on the surface of another celestial body. Full Moon Guide: September - October Full Moon Guide: August - September For the first time, astronomers have uncovered evidence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Ganymede.

The next full Moon goes by many names including the Buck Moon. Full Moon Guide: July — August The probe flew closer to Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, than any other spacecraft in more than two decades. Now an international This is the first time this detection method has been These rocky worlds have an ultra-thin outer brittle layer and little to no topography. Such worlds After studying the chemical composition of 'polluted' Scientists have developed a How did Jupiter get its name?

Who discovered Jupiter? What are the stripes of color on Jupiter? Does Jupiter have rings? How strong is the gravity on Jupiter? How large is Jupiter compared to Earth? And new members in the Jupiter posse are still being discovered. On July 16, , it was announced that a team of astronomers had found 12 previously unknown moons around the planet. Scott S. Sheppard of the Carnegie Institute for Sciences was leading a search for new objects in the distant Kuiper Belt, an enormous ring of debris that lies beyond Neptune.

Sheppard and his colleagues decided to take a break from their primary research goal and observe Jupiter for a while. That's how they wound up standing on Galileo's shoulders. In , the great astronomer Galileo Galilei noticed four heavenly bodies that appeared to revolve around Jupiter. Named Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, these are Jupiter's biggest moons by far — and they were the first to be discovered. As stargazing technology grew more sophisticated, it became clear that the quartet had lots of company.

Sheppard's team just brought the total number of identified Jovian moons i. Jupiter had always had the most moons in the solar system, until the summer of That's when astronomers discovered that Saturn had another 20 moons , bringing its total to Uranus boasts 27 and Neptune has Mars, our beloved next-door neighbor, possesses two satellites: Deimos and Phobos.

And if that's making you feel insecure about Earth's lonely moon, at least you can take solace in the fact that Mercury and Venus are totally moon-less. There's a reason why Jupiter has so many satellites while other planets — ours, for instance — have so few. It all comes down to gravity. Astronomers divide the planets within our solar system into two categories.