Moons of Jupiter

Moons Of Jupiter

The planet Jupiter has 67 confirmed moons. This gives it the largest retinue of moons with "reasonably secure" orbits of any planet in the Solar System. The most massive of them, the four Galilean moons, were discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and were the first objects found to orbit a body that was neither Earth nor the Sun. From the end of the 19th century, dozens of much smaller Jovian moons have been discovered and have received the names of lovers, conquests, or daughters of the Roman god Jupiter, or his Greek predecessor, Zeus. The Galilean moons are by far the largest objects in orbit around Jupiter, with the remaining 63 moons and the rings together comprising just 0.003 percent of the total orbiting mass.

Eight of Jupiter's moons are regular satellites, with prograde and nearly circular orbits that are not greatly inclined with respect to Jupiter's equatorial plane. The Galilean satellites are ellipsoidal in shape, due to having planetary mass, and so would be considered (dwarf) planets if they were in direct orbit about the Sun. The other four regular satellites are much smaller and closer to Jupiter; these serve as sources of the dust that makes up Jupiter's rings.

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. These moons were probably captured by Jupiter from solar orbits. There are 16 recently discovered irregular satellites that have not yet been named.