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Planetary science

Jupiter's moonopoly

Nature volume 423, pages 235–236 (2003)Cite this article

A further 23 satellites have been discovered in orbit around Jupiter. With diameters of between two and eight kilometres, the moons are the smallest yet spotted around any planet.

Swinging serenely around the Sun, mighty Jupiter has reason to be pleased: its pre-eminence as the planet with the largest number of natural satellites, or moons, has been dramatically and decisively re-established. Fending off strong challenges from rival Saturn and wild card Uranus, the Solar System's largest planet now has nearly as many known moons as all of its competitors combined. Satellite-seekers Scott Sheppard and David Jewitt are responsible for returning Jupiter to its dominant status — on page 261 of this issue1, they report the discovery of nearly two dozen new jovian moons.

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Figure 1: Planets and satellites.
Figure 2: The orbits of Jupiter's outer satellites.

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  1. the Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA

    Douglas P. Hamilton

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  1. Douglas P. Hamilton
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Correspondence to Douglas P. Hamilton.

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Hamilton, D. Jupiter's moonopoly. Nature 423, 235–236 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423235a

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/423235a

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