Universe & space

Discovery of Jupiter LI

7 September 2010

Jupiter LI is a small irregular moon of Jupiter, found in 2010 by astronomers using telescopes in Hawaii, and first known by a provisional designation before it received a Roman numeral. Like most of the planet's outer moons, it orbits at a great distance from Jupiter and in a retrograde direction, which suggests that it is a captured body, perhaps a fragment of a larger object that broke up. It is only a few kilometres across. Little is known about its composition or origin, and it has not yet received a formal name.

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