Astronomers have discovered 12 more moons orbiting Jupiter. The planet’s moon count now stands at 92. That’s the most in our solar system.
The new moons were spotted using telescopes. It took scientists about a year to confirm the discovery. The moons are small, no bigger than two miles across. Jupiter has many small moons. They could be pieces of bigger moons that crashed into other space objects.
“I hope we can image one of these outer moons close-up,” says Scott Sheppard, of the discovery team. He works for the Carnegie Institution for Science, in Washington, D.C. Sheppard wants “to better determine [the moons’] origins.” He thinks that more of them have yet to be found.
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