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New Satellites of Jupiter Discovered in 2003
University of Hawaii

A work in progress: Most recent update April 4, 2003 

This page describes the discovery of 18 new satellites of Jupiter, 
bringing the total of known Jupiter satellites to 58. 

Discovery of the New Satellites 

The majority of 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-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics performed the orbit 
fitting for the new satellites. 

The first 7 satellites were formally announced by the International 
Astronomical Union on Circular No. 8087 on March 4, 2003 while the 
eighth was announced on Circular No. 8088 on March 6, the 9th through 
12th on Circular No. 8089 on March 7, and S/2003 J13 through J18 were 
announced in early April. All the satellites appear to have distant
retrograde orbits (ie. their orbital rotation is opposite to
Jupiter's rotation) like the majority of the known irregular
satellites of Jupiter. However these orbits are still preliminary and
may change as new observations are obtained.

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