Cape Canaveral, Fla.: Astronomers have discovered 12 new moons orbiting Jupiter, bringing the total to 92 for the first time.

That amount is greater than any other planet in our solar system. Saturn, the former leader, comes in second place with 83 confirmed moons.

According to Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution, who was part of the team, the Jupiter moons were recently added to a list kept by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center.

They were discovered in 2021 and 2022 using telescopes in Hawaii and Chile, and their orbits were confirmed by subsequent observations.

These newest moons range in size from 0.6 miles to 2 miles (1 kilometer to 3 kilometers), according to Sheppard.

“I hope we can image one of these outer moons close-up in the near future to better determine their origins,” he said in an email Friday.

The European Space Agency will launch a spacecraft to Jupiter in April to study the planet and some of its largest, icy moons. In addition, NASA will launch the Europa Clipper next year to investigate Jupiter's moon of the same name, which may harbor an ocean beneath its frozen crust.

Sheppard, who discovered a slew of moons around Saturn a few years ago and has been involved in 70 moon discoveries around Jupiter so far, expects to keep adding to both gas giants' lunar tally.

Jupiter and Saturn are teeming with small moons, which are thought to be fragments of larger moons that collided with one another or with comets or asteroids, according to Sheppard. The same is true for Uranus and Neptune, but their distance makes moon-spotting even more difficult.

Uranus has 27 confirmed moons, Neptune has 14, Mars has two, and Earth has one. Venus and Mercury both come up short.

The newly discovered moons of Jupiter have yet to be named. Sheppard claims that only half of them are large enough—aat least 1 mile (1.5 kilometers)—to merit naming.