Discovery of the New Satellites
The new satellites were discovered in early February 2003 by Scott S.
Sheppard and David C. Jewitt from the Institute for Astronomy, University of
Hawaii along with Jan Kleyna of Cambridge University. The discoveries were
made using the world’s two largest digital cameras at the Subaru (8.3 meter
diameter) and Canada-France-Hawaii (3.6 meter diameter) telescopes atop
Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Both telescopes and their imaging cameras represent the
latest technology has to offer. Recoveries were performed at the University
of Hawaii 2.2 meter with help from Yanga Fernandez and Henry Hsieh also from
the University of Hawaii. Brian Marsden of the Harvard Center for
Astrophysics performed the orbit fitting for the new satellites.
The satellites were formally announced by the International Astronomical
Union on Circular No. 8087 on March 4, 2003. Two of the seven new satellites
(S/2003 J1 and S/2003 J6) follow prograde orbits around Jupiter (ie. their
orbital motion is in the same direction as Jupiter’s spin). The other five
have distant retrograde orbits like the majority of the known irregular
satellites of Jupiter. However these orbits are still preliminary and may
change as new observations are obtained.
Figure 1: Two images of S/2003 J1 showing the motion of the satellite
relative to background stars and galaxies. Click on the image to learn more
about them.
Here is a table and diagram showing all of Jupiter’s satellites:
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~sheppard/satellites/jupsatdata.html
To learn more about the satellites of Jupiter visit The Jupiter Satellite
Page:
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~sheppard/satellites/jupsatdata.html
Contacts:
Scott S. Sheppard (phone 808 956 6098; e-mail: sheppard@ifa.hawaii.edu)
David C. Jewitt (phone 808 956 7682; e-mail: jewitt@ifa.hawaii.edu)
