Himalia group

Far, far away, orbiting the giant planet Jupiter, are some very small moons called the Himalia group. They are like little pebbles compared to Jupiter, which is so big that over 1,300 Earths could fit inside it! These moons are not round like our Moon.

Instead, they are bumpy and shaped like potatoes. They are made of rocky stuff, like the ground beneath your feet, but much, much older. They are a bit like a scattered collection of space rocks that Jupiter decided to keep close by.

These little moons zip around Jupiter super fast! They are much closer to Jupiter than our Moon is to Earth. It takes them less than two Earth days to go all the way around Jupiter once.

That's faster than you can go to school and back home! Because they are so close to Jupiter, they have to move quickly to avoid crashing into it. They are like race cars on a tiny track, always going around and around.

The biggest moon in this group, named Himalia, was found a super long time ago, in 1904. Imagine a detective looking through a telescope and spotting something new! Scientists have found other moons in this group too, but they are even smaller and harder to see.

They are like shy little friends hiding behind the bigger ones. It's amazing that people could find these tiny things so far away with telescopes from long ago.

The Himalia group is special because they are some of Jupiter's closest moons. They are also very old, maybe even as old as Jupiter itself! Scientists study them to learn more about how planets and moons form in space. They are like little clues from the very beginning of our solar system. Even though they are small, they help us understand the big mysteries of space!