A team of astronomers looking for a proposed planet past the orbit of Pluto got a surprise of their own when they discovered new moons around Jupiter. Twelve, to be exact.
The moons are small, ranging from just one kilometre to three kilometres in width. It now brings Jupiter’s moon count up to 79, the most of any planet in our solar system.
“Finding 12 is pretty surprising,” said Scott S. Sheppard, an astronomer from the Carnegie Institution for Science, who led a team of researchers in the discovery.
The researchers were searching for the proposed “Planet X” or “Planet 9,” which astronomers believe exists and could account for the way distant objects orbit in a similar manner.
Using the Blanco
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