New Delhi:
Astronomers have discovered dozen new moons encircling the Jupiter that will inevitably lead to the planet violent destruction, as they are "driving down the highway on the wrong side of the road".
The discovery of the 12 new moons brings the total number of Jovian moons to 79, more than are known to circle any other planet in our cosmic neighbourhood.
Valetudo, one of Jupiter's moons named after the goddess of health and hygiene, is fast hurtling on the wrong side of the spaceway, say Scott Sheppard, Carnegie Institution.
“Valetudo is like driving down the highway on the wrong side of the road,” said Sheppard.
Sheppard led the study at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC.
“It is moving prograde while all the other objects at a similar distance from Jupiter are moving retrograde. Thus head-on collisions are likely,” he said.
The researchers were hunting for a mysterious ninth planet when they stumbled upon the new moons.
The ninth planet is postulated to lurk far beyond the orbit of Neptune.
In was in March 2017 that the team in the US first sported the moons from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. After a year-study, they have now confirmed that the bodies were locked in orbit around the gas giant.
The study was published in the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Electronic Circular.
Here's all you need to know about the new moons around Jupiter, according to the circular:
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“Collisions don’t happen all that frequently, every billion years or so... “If one did happen, we would be able to detect it from Earth, but it is unlikely to happen anytime soon,” Sheppard said.