Talk:Moons of Jupiter

Updating charts

The frequently-updating moon counts of Jupiter and Saturn also bring up the issue of having to update the charts for every new moon announced. Unfortunately, pretty much all of the graphs and charts documenting the moon counts and orbital properties of Jupiter and Saturn's irregulars are outdated and in dire need of updating. For example, this moon count timeline File:Outer planet moons.svg hasn't been updated since 2019 and its author User:StewartIM hasn't been active since 2020. Unfortunately, modifying it is beyond my ability since I don't have a proper SVG editor (playing around with the code in a text editor also doesn't work). I wonder if we could replace it with Template:Graph:Chart, but I'm not sure how it works yet.

Same goes for File:TheIrregulars JUPITER.svg; it's outdated since 2006, the author has been inactive for a long time, and it's in a SVG format I can't edit easily. A lot of their graphics have been used for irregular moon articles and suffer from being outdated.

I admit my own orbit diagram graphics (i.e. File:Jupiter irregular moon orbits Jan 2021.png are also outdated, but I'm holding off until JPL releases accurate SPICE trajectories for the newest moons. In reality, the irregulars never orbit in closed ellipses and the SPICE trajectories should reflect this (example). Nrco0e (talk) 09:38, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm still working on the diagram. I'll have it done. eventually. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 22:15, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

It done exoplanetaryscience (talk) 01:27, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Nice, thanks! :D Double sharp (talk) 15:02, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Just updated the "Outer planet moons" graph through February 2023. I think moving towards a Template:Graph:Chart seems like a good way to go. I've been using an XLS version of the discovery table on List of natural satellites as a source. StewartIM (talk) 12:44, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much! Nrco0e (talk) 03:31, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Hmm. I wonder if we want to go by the years marked with * on the MPECs, or the actual announcement years? It affects things like S/2004 S 20 through 39. Double sharp (talk) 21:01, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

I've created a version of the "Outer planet moons" graph that uses Template:Graph:Chart to replace the raster version. Double sharp, now that announcement years are listed in the wikitables I switched the graph back to announcement years. I prefer those because (1) it's easier to maintain and (2) it gives a better sense of what the public was aware of each year. StewartIM (talk) 12:35, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

It's definitely much better now. Again, thank you very much. Nrco0e (talk) 20:07, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, this is great! Double sharp (talk) 05:54, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

“several tens of a percent”

Simulations suggest that, while the disk had a relatively high mass at any given moment, over time a substantial fraction (several tens of a percent) of the mass of Jupiter captured from the solar nebula was passed through it.

Several tens of percentage points? Several tenths of a percentage point? I don’t have the book that is the source. JDAWiseman (talk) 20:47, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 March 2023

In the table of orbit data for the moons, I wish to add a translation of the number of days to hours, similar to the first 4 moons for the next 2 moons. for Io add "(+42h 18min 17.28s)" and for Europa add "(+84h 36min 43.2s)" source: take the number of days in the orbit × 24 for the number of hours, then take the decimal and × by 60 for the number of minutes, then take the decimal for the last time × 60, and that is the number of seconds. Desertmantaray (talk) 18:34, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

 Done Nrco0e (talk) 20:04, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Themisto eccentricity

I think your table got the value way wrong. It is not 0.340 it is 0.252 according to your own article on Themisto, and it is 0.2424 according to http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/themisto/by-the-numbers/ 47.18.157.160 (talk) 18:47, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. Ruslik_Zero 19:59, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

The source (JPL) gives 0.340. Note that orbits of irregulars are highly variable over short timescales due to perturbations, which is probably the cause of this. (This is why we use the mean orbital elements in the table.) Double sharp (talk) 02:59, 26 September 2023 (UTC)