Image credit: NASA/JPL.

As of 2020, six satellites are considered to be lost.

The next full Moon will be on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 1, 2020. There are 79 known moons of Jupiter.

From the number of candidate moons detected within a sky area of one square degree, the team extrapolated that the population of retrograde Jovian moons brighter than magnitude 25.7 is around 600, within a factor of 2. centerMode: false,

Jupiter has 53 named moons and another 26 awaiting official names. The Galileo spacecraft was the first to enter orbit around Jupiter, arriving in 1995 and studying it until 2003. "?" [9] By January 1610, he had sighted the four massive Galilean moons with his 20× magnification telescope, and he published his results in March 1610.

Layering at Callisto is less well defined and appears to be mainly a mixture of ice and rock.

Dr. Lori Glaze The next major mission to explore Jupiter’s moons is NASA’s Europa Clipper.
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. Jupiter has 79 total numbers of moons, in which 26 of them have not been officially named yet. Site Manager: [4], The outer, irregular moons are thought to have originated from captured asteroids, whereas the protolunar disk was still massive enough to absorb much of their momentum and thus capture them into orbit. Phillips Davis Combined, scientists now think Jupiter has 79 moons. They are roughly the same size as Earth's moon, some are a bit bigger, some are smaller.

Europa might be the best place to look for environments where life could exist. The next full Moon will peak after midnight on Wednesday morning, Sept. 2, 2020, The Moon will appear full for about three days around this time, from Monday evening through Thursday morning.

[25] On 17 July 2018, the International Astronomical Union confirmed that Sheppard's team had discovered ten more moons around Jupiter, bringing the total number to 79. Jupiter IX) in the majority of astronomical literature until the 1970s.



The irregular captured moons are shaded light gray when prograde and dark gray when retrograde.

The remainder of Jupiter's moons are irregular satellites whose prograde and retrograde orbits are much farther from Jupiter and have high inclinations and eccentricities. They form families with shared similarities in orbit (semi-major axis, inclination, eccentricity) and composition; it is believed that these are at least partially collisional families that were created when larger (but still small) parent bodies were shattered by impacts from asteroids captured by Jupiter's gravitational field.

A number of other moons have only been observed for a year or two, but have decent enough orbits to be easily measurable even in 2020.[29].

refers to group assignments that are not considered sure yet. Close-up images taken by the Galileo spacecraft of portions of Europa's surface show places where ice has broken up and moved apart, and where liquid may have come from below and frozen smoothly on the surface. Most of the moons of Jupiter are small, with about 60 of the satellites being less than 6.2 miles in diameter.

Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system.

They were the first objects found to orbit a body that was neither Earth nor the Sun. 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. $("#features_slick_slider_6u8y1c0d")[0].slick.refresh();

The Moon will appear full from Wednesday morning through Saturday morning.

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Diameters with multiple entries such as "60×40×34" reflect that the body is not a perfect.

Among these is Valetudo , which has a prograde orbit, but crosses paths with several moons that have retrograde orbits, making an eventual collision—at some point on a billions-of-years timescale—likely.

CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (, Carnegie Institution, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, "A dozen new moons of Jupiter discovered, including one "oddball, https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Jupiter%27s_moons&oldid=6884290, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

Callisto's surface is extremely heavily cratered and ancient—a visible record of events from the early history of the solar system.

Here you can find a Jupiter moons list with their names. This site is maintained by the Planetary Science Communications team at, NASA Scientists Discover ‘Weird' Molecule in Titan's Atmosphere, Juno Data Indicates 'Sprites' or 'Elves' Frolic in Jupiter's Atmosphere, This Transforming Rover Can Explore the Toughest Terrain, October 2020: The Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon, Cyclones of Color at Jupiter's North Pole, Hubble Captures Crisp New Portrait of Jupiter's Storms, September 2020: The Next Full Moon is the Corn, Fruit, Barley, and Hungry Ghost Moon, 'Shallow Lightning' and 'Mushballs' Reveal Ammonia to Juno Scientists, NASA's Webb Telescope Will Study Jupiter, Its Rings, and Two Intriguing Moons, August 2020: The Next Full Moon is the Sturgeon Moon, Juno Takes First Images of Jovian Moon Ganymede's North Pole, NASA Announces Mini Payload Challenge Winners, Heat Shield Milestone for First Crewed Orion Mission, Building NASA's Psyche: Design Done, Now Full Speed Ahead on Hardware, July 2020: The Next Full Moon is the Buck Moon, NASA Plans More SLS Rocket Boosters to Launch Artemis Moon Missions, NASA's First Planetary Defense Mission Target Gets a New Name, NASA Scientist Simulates Sunsets on Other Worlds, Rocket Motors for First Artemis Moon Mission Arrive at Spaceport, The Next Full Moon is the Strawberry Moon, UPDATE: Astronomers recategorize asteroid-like comet detected by ATLAS telescope.
[36] With the discovery of smaller, kilometre-sized moons around Jupiter, the IAU has established an additional convention to limit the naming of small moons with absolute magnitudes greater than 18 or diameters smaller than 1 km (0.62 mi). The other moons were simply labeled by their Roman numeral (e.g. These are S/2003 J 2, S/2003 J 4, S/2003 J 9, S/2003 J 10, S/2003 J 12, and S/2003 J 23. Moons massive enough for their surfaces to have collapsed into a spheroid are highlighted in bold. The rocket booster segments that will help power NASA’s first Artemis flight test mission around the Moon arrived at KSC.

New results from NASA's Juno mission suggest that either "sprites" or "elves" could be dancing in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. The most massive of the moons are the four Galilean moons, which were independently discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and Simon Marius.

The next full Moon will be early Sunday morning, July 5, 2020.

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[7], Chinese historian Xi Zezong claimed that the earliest record of a Jovian moon (Ganymede or Callisto) was a note by Chinese astronomer Gan De of an observation around 364 BC regarding a "reddish star". [24] Two more were discovered in 2016 by the team led by Scott S. Sheppard at the Carnegie Institution for Science, bringing the total to 69.

Order refers to the position among other moons with respect to their average distance from Jupiter. [4] Thus there may have been several generations of Galilean-mass satellites in Jupiter's early history.

[4], The outer, irregular moons are thought to have originated from captured asteroids, whereas the protolunar disk was still massive enough to absorb much of their momentum and thus capture them into orbit.

It is approximately 26% larger than the planet, Though there are 79 known moons of Jupiter, but currently some of Jupiter’s moons are lost, After the first seen of Galilean moons in 1610, no Jupiter moons observed until 1892. Required fields are marked *. [1][2][3] Jupiter has the second largest number of moons with reasonably stable orbits of any planet in the Solar System.[4]. The next full Moon will be early Sunday morning, July 5, 2020. Social Media Lead: [28] These candidates were mainly small and faint, down to a magnitude of 25.7 or over 800 m (0.50 mi) in diameter. Callisto is the most heavily cratered object in our solar system. Jupiter’s Galilean Moons were the first discovered moons after the earth’s moons and were the first known objects to orbit a planet after the earth’s moon.

The most well-known of Jupiter's moons are Io (pronounced eye-oh ), Europa, and Callisto. This enhanced-color image from NASA’s Juno spacecraft captures the striking cloud bands of Jupiter’s southern latitudes.

The first spacecraft to visit Jupiter were Pioneer 10 in 1973, and Pioneer 11 a year later, taking low-resolution images of the four Galilean moons and returning data on their atmospheres and radiation belts.

Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system (larger than the planet Mercury), and is the only moon known to have its own internally generated magnetic field. The Hubble image includes a new storm brewing on Jupiter, and a cousin of the famous Great Red Spot region gearing up to change color. Each generation of moons might have spiraled into Jupiter, because of drag from the disk, with new moons then forming from the new debris captured from the solar nebula. [30] The names Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto became popular in the mid-20th century,[31] whereas the rest of the moons remained unnamed and were usually numbered in Roman numerals V (5) to XII (12). By January 1610, he had sighted the four massive Galilean moons with his 20× magnification telescope, and he published his results in March 1610.