Sometimes a search for one thing presents the chance to look for something else. If you're like me, that something else is usually something small: Rummaging in the couch cushions for the TV remote might prompt you to dig for spare change. Two birds, one stone, etc. But if you're astronomer Scott Sheppard, the second bird occasionally turns out to be a doozy. Or several doozies. Like, say, a dozen previously unknown moons orbiting Jupiter, the discovery of which was announced Tuesday by the International Astronomical Union. "We just wanted to be as efficient as possible," says Sheppard, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC. Since 2012, he and his team have been using the Dark Energy Camera—an exquisitely sensitive instrument the size of a small car, mounted to Chile's Blanco 4-m telescope—to search for celestial bodies at the fringes of the solar system. But early last year, the researchers realized that the DECam would so...
Let's Inspir Future...!