Thyone (moon)
Appearance
Thyone or Jupiter XXIX, is a non-spherical moon of Jupiter. It was found by a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii led by Scott S. Sheppard, et al. in 2001, and given the designation S/2001 J 2.[1][2]
Thyone is about 4 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 21,406,000 km in 639.803 days, at an inclination of 147° to the ecliptic (147° to Jupiter's equator) with an orbital eccentricity of 0.2526.
It was named in August 2003 after Thyone, better known as Semele, one of Zeus' conquests in Greek mythology.[3]
Thyone belongs to the Ananke group, retrograde non-spherical moons which orbit Jupiter between 19,300,000 and 22,700,000 km, at inclinations of about 150°.
References
[change | change source]- ↑ IAUC 7900: Satellites of Jupiter 2002 May 16 (discovery)
- ↑ MPEC 2002-J54: Eleven New Satellites of Jupiter 2002 May 15 (discovery and ephemeris)
- ↑ IAUC 8177: Satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus 2003 August 8 (naming the moon)