there are nearly 200 moons in our solar
system and over a third of those belong
to a single planet Jupiter Jupiter has
the most moons of any planet and if
that's not enough astronomers recently
discovered 12 new ones to add to the
list that Scott Shepard he's an
astronomer at the Carnegie Institution
of Science who spends his time searching
for new objects in our solar system
already he and his team have discovered
evidence of a potential planet beyond
Pluto called Planet 9 and now twelve new
moons of Jupiter including the weirdest
one yet we believe these objects occupy
captured by Jupiter a long time ago and
they have their group Jupiter's moons
are sort of like opposite lanes on a
highway two of the new moons are in a
group that orbit in the same direction
as Jupiter spin called the pro-grade
group while nine of the other moons
orbit in the opposite direction farther
out in the retrograde group and each
moon stays in its respective Lane except
for the last moon it's a rebel it orbits
in the same direction as Jupiter spin
similar to the first new moons but it's
not part of the same group instead its
path takes it into the realm of the nine
moons that orbit in the opposite
direction in the opposite direction so
it's like going against traffic Shepard
suspects that situations like this have
happened in the past which helps explain
why Jupiter has so many moons in the
first place it's powerful gravitational
pull allows it to capture large passing
objects that then collide with each
other forming dozens of new smaller
moons we're using the most advanced
digital cameras in the world and so
we're going a little deeper than people
have in the past as well so that's why
we're able to find the moons are too
small to see with the average tel
scope measuring only a few kilometers in
size it took one of the most powerful
digital cameras in the world the dark
energy camera to spot them now all
that's left is to name the New Moon's
Shepard and his team already proposed a
name for the rebel moon Vala to do'
after the great granddaughter of the
Roman god Jupiter also known as the
goddess of Health and hygiene for the
other 11 moons Shepard said they might
let the public help out so what would
you name these new moons tell us in the
comments who knows maybe it'll go down
in the history books