HIMALIA (MOON)

'Himalia' (, ; Greek ''Ἱμαλíα)'' is the largest irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory on 1904 December 3^[2][3][4][5] and is named after the nymph Himalia who bore three sons of Zeus.
On December 19, 2000, the ''Cassini'' spacecraft, en route to Saturn, captured a very low resolution image of Himalia, but it was too distant to show any surface details.
Himalia did not receive its present name until 1975;^[6] before then, it was simply known as 'Jupiter VI' or 'Jupiter Satellite VI', although it was sometimes called "Hestia"^[7] from 1955 to 1975. Calls for a full name appeared shortly after its and Elara's discovery:^[8]
It is the largest member of the group that bears its name, the moons orbiting between 11.4 and 13 million kilometers from Jupiter at an inclination of about 27.5°.^[9] The orbital elements are as of January 2000. They are continuously changing due to Solar and planetary perturbations.

Contents

Physical characteristics

Exploration

See also

References

External links

Physical characteristics

Himalia appears neutral (grey), as the other members of its group, with colour indices B-V=0.62, V-R= 0.4, similar to a C-type asteroid.^[10] Measurements by ''Cassini'' confirm the featureless spectrum, with a slight absorption at 3 μm which could indicate the presence of water.^[11]

Exploration

In November 2000, the Cassini spacecraft enroute to Saturn made a number of images of Himalia, including the photos from a distance as close as 4.4 million km. From these images Himalia seems to be an elongated object with axes 150 ± 20 and 120 ± 20 km, close to the Earth-based estimations.
In February and March 2007, the New Horizons spacecraft to Pluto made a series of images of Himalia, culminating in photos from a distance of eight million km.

See also

★ Irregular satellites

References

1. The orbits of outer Jovian satellites, , R. A., Jacobson, Astronomical Journal, 2000
2. Discovery of a Sixth Satellite of Jupiter, , , , Astronomical Journal,
3. Sixth Satellite of Jupiter Confirmed (Himalaia), , , , Harvard College Observatory Bulletin,
4. Discovery of a Sixth Satellite to Jupiter, , C. D., Perrine, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1905
5. Orbits of the sixth and seventh satellites of Jupiter, , C. D., Perrine, Astronomische Nachrichten, 1905
6. Satellites of Jupiter, , B. G., Marsden, IAUC Circular,
7. Introduction to Astronomy, , Cecilia, Payne-Gaposchkin, Prentice-Hall, 1970,
8. Provisional Elements of Jupiter's Satellite VI, , A. C. D., Crommelin, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,
9. Sheppard, S. S., Jewitt, D. C., Porco, C.; ''Jupiter's Outer Satellites and Trojans'', in ''Jupiter: The Planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere,'' edited by Fran Bagenal, Timothy E. Dowling, William B. McKinnon, Cambridge Planetary Science, Vol. 1, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-81808-7, 2004, pp. 263-280
10. Implied Evolutionary Differences of the Jovian Irregular Satellites from a BVR Color Survey, , Terrence W., Rettig, Icarus, 2001
11. Near-infrared spectroscopy of Himalia, , Matthew A., Chamberlain, Icarus, 2004

External links

★ Himalia Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration

★ David Jewitt pages

★ Scott Sheppard pages


''... | Leda | 'Himalia' | Lysithea | ...''