Happy birthday, Juno! NASA's Jupiter probe launched 10 years ago today

[Admin]

NASA's Jupiter-exploring space probe Juno celebrates 10 years in space today (Aug. 5).

Happy birthday, Juno! NASA's Jupiter probe launched 10 years ago today : Read more

 

[Catastrophe]

From the 11 new moons of Jupiter discovered . . . . . . . . .

"Nine of the new moons are part of a distant outer swarm of moons that orbit it in the retrograde, or opposite direction of Jupiter’s spin rotation. These distant retrograde moons are grouped into at least three distinct orbital groupings and are thought to be the remnants of three once-larger parent bodies that broke apart during collisions with asteroids, comets, or other moons. The newly discovered retrograde moons take about two years to orbit Jupiter."

Are the 75 (as of whenever) smaller moons, of around 6 miles across, all spherical?
We are looking at Deimos/Phobos style objects here. Should we not be thinking of a lesser term than moon to describe such objects?

Cat

 

[Catastrophe]

If anyone is interested, I have a lot more info on Jupiter's moons. There are a few which are not tiny, but the majority are so. "Only 20 of Jupiter's moons are larger than 10 miles (15 km) across, the other 43 now known are often truly tiny objects". For example, the Carme retrograde group have approx. radii of 1, 3, ,1, 1, 1,, 2, 2, 1.5, 1, 1.5, 2.5, 1, 2, 1.5, 0.5, 23, 2.5 km. and the Pasiphae irregular group is not much different.

Cat