S/2018 J 4

Imagine a tiny speck of dust compared to a giant beach ball! That's kind of like S/2018 J 4 and its giant planet, Jupiter. This little moon is super small, only about 1 kilometer (a little less than a mile) across.

That's like the length of a few football fields put together! It's so small that it's hard to even see. It was discovered very recently, in 2018, by scientists using special telescopes that can see far, far away into space.

S/2018 J 4 is a moon, which means it orbits around a planet. And what a planet it orbits! It circles the biggest planet in our whole solar system, the gas giant Jupiter. Jupiter is so huge that you could fit over 1,300 Earths inside it! S/2018 J 4 is one of Jupiter's many moons, and it lives quite far away from Jupiter, taking a long time to make one trip around its giant home.

Even though S/2018 J 4 is far from Jupiter, it still moves really fast! It takes about 250 Earth days to go all the way around Jupiter. That's like almost a whole year for us on Earth! This little moon is also a bit of a loner. It travels on its own path, and it's a bit tilted compared to Jupiter's other moons. It’s like it’s doing its own special dance in space!

Scientists love finding new moons because each one tells us more about how planets and their moons form. S/2018 J 4 is special because it's one of the smallest moons ever found around Jupiter. Its discovery helps us understand that even tiny rocks can become moons! It shows us that space is full of surprises, and there are still many amazing things to discover out there.