Others of the newly found moons are in prograde orbits, suggesting they formed around Jupiter. The new moons' retrograde orbits imply that Jupiter's immense gravitational influence may have captured these moons, with the smaller ones possibly the remains of larger bodies broken apart by collisions. The nine particularly distant moons also have retrograde orbits, meaning that they circle the gas giant in the opposite direction of its rotation the inner Jovian moons, in contrast, have "prograde" orbits in the same direction as the planet's rotation. These moons are all also relatively small: only five of those nine moons are thought to have a diameter greater than 5 miles (8 km). Of the 12 new moons, nine are particularly distant: The MPC estimates these nine moons to have orbits longer than 550 days. And all of the new moons circle Jupiter far from its surface, taking more than 340 Earth days to complete an orbit of the gas giant, according to Sky and Telescope.
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