Just when you thought you were up to date ...
Eleven new Jupiter satellites were discovered in 2017, and confirmed in 2018 – plus one "oddball". (It takes several observations to confirm that an object orbits Jupiter.)
The best summary of Solar System moons that I could find was on GoAstronomy.com. As well as Jupiter's 79, this lists 82 for Saturn, 27 for Uranus, 14 for Neptune, and 5 for Pluto. Plus one for Earth and two for Mars.
GoAstronomy also lists:
| • | Eight other dwarf planets (apart from Pluto) that have moons: Haumea (2), Orcus, Salacia, Quaoar, Makemake, Varda, Gonggong and Eris (one each) |
| • | Seven minor planets in the asteroid belt that have eleven moons between them |
That's a grand total of 230.
Other fascinating facts I learnt from GoAstronomy:
| • | Mercury is too close to the Sun to hold on to any moons |
| • | Venus may have had a moon in the distant past, which impacted the planet after colliding with another object |
| • | Earth has several quasi–satellites – asteroids 2020 CD3 and 2020 HO3 being the closest with the most stable temporary orbits |
| • | Saturn also has "hundreds to thousands" of moonlets embedded in its ring system |
| • | Triton (the largest of Neptune's 14 moons) is believed to be a dwarf planet from the Kuiper Belt, captured by Neptune |
| • | Ceres, the only dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, has no moons ("surprisingly") |
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