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New Satellites of Jupiter Discovered in 2003
University of Hawaii

A work in progress: Most recent update March 5, 2003

University of Hawaii astronomers announce the discovery
 of 7 new satellites of Jupiter, bringing the total of
         known Jupiter satellites to 47.
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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.

[Image]

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


http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~sheppard/satellites/jup2003.html

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