New Moons of Jupiter Discovered 木星衛(wèi)星增添新成員

笪景行

Scientists have discovered 12 new moons around Jupiter， putting the totalcount at a record-breaking 92. Thats more than any other planet in our solarsystem2. Saturn3 comes in a close second with 83 moons. These newest moons rangein size from one kilometre to three kilometres. The small moons of Jupiter and Saturnare believed to be the results of once bigger moons that collided4 with one another.Jupiters newly discovered moons have yet to be named. Only half of them are bigenough—at least 1.5 kilometres or so in size—to qualify5 for a name.

科學(xué)家們在木星周圍發(fā)現(xiàn)了12 顆新的衛(wèi)星，木星的衛(wèi)星總數(shù)達(dá)到了創(chuàng)紀(jì)錄的92 顆。這比太陽系中的任何其他行星都多。土星以83 顆衛(wèi)星的數(shù)量緊隨其后。這些新發(fā)現(xiàn)的衛(wèi)星直徑從一千米到三千米不等。木星和土星的小衛(wèi)星被認(rèn)為是曾經(jīng)較大的衛(wèi)星彼此碰撞的結(jié)果。新發(fā)現(xiàn)的木星衛(wèi)星尚未被命名。其中只有一半的衛(wèi)星足夠大———直徑至少在1.5 千米左右———有資格獲得一個名字。

Notes

1. Jupiter 木星

2. solar system 太陽系

3. Saturn? 土星

4. collide? 碰撞；相撞

5. qualify? 使……有權(quán)做；使……有資格擁有