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In both the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, Jupiter was named after the chief god of the divine pantheon: Zeus to the Greeks and Jupiter to the Romans. [19] The International Astronomical Union formally adopted the name Jupiter for the planet in 1976 and has since named its newly discovered satellites for the god's lovers, favourites, and descendants. [20]
Jupiter III Galileo [9] [10] discovered the Galilean moons. These satellites were the first celestial objects that were confirmed to orbit an object other than the Sun or Earth. Galileo saw Io and Europa as a single point of light on 7 January 1610; they were seen as separate bodies the following night. [11] Callisto: Jupiter IV o: 8 January 1610
Galileo also discovered that the Moon was cratered, that the Sun was marked with sunspots, and that Jupiter had four satellites in orbit around it. [13] Christiaan Huygens followed on from Galileo's discoveries by discovering Saturn's moon Titan and the shape of the rings of Saturn. [14]
Jupiter/Saturn/first Uranus/first Neptune flyby [239] [240] [241] Voyager 1: 5 September 1977 Jupiter/Saturn flyby, first to exit the heliosphere [241] [242] [243] Pioneer Venus 1: 20 May 1978 Venus orbiter [244] [245] Pioneer Venus 2: 8 August 1978 Venus atmospheric probes [246] [247] ISEE-3: 12 August 1978
1979 – Voyager 1 flies by Jupiter and discovers its faint ring system, as well as volcanoes on Io, the innermost of its Galilean moons. [201] 1979 – Voyager 2 flies by Jupiter and discovers evidence of an ocean under the surface of its moon Europa. [202] 1980 – Voyager 1 flies by Saturn and takes the first images of Titan. [203]
Two new, small satellites, Adrastea and Metis, were discovered orbiting just outside the ring, making them the first of Jupiter's moons to be identified by a spacecraft. [ 26 ] [ 27 ] A third new satellite, Thebe , was discovered between the orbits of Amalthea and Io.
In his book Mundus Iovialis ("The World of Jupiter"), published in 1614, Simon Marius, the court astronomer to the Margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach, claimed to have discovered Io and the other moons of Jupiter in 1609, one week before Galileo's discovery. [7] According to Marius, he began observing the Jupiter system in late November 1609. [13]
He discovered the four largest moons of Jupiter in 1610, which are now collectively known as the Galilean moons, in his honor. [85] This discovery was the first known observation of satellites orbiting another planet. [85]