Iocaste (moon)

:"There is also an asteroid named 899 Jokaste."----Iocaste (pron-en|ˌaɪəˈkæsti "EYE-ə-KAS-tee," or as in Greek "Ιοκάστη)," also known as nowrap|Jupiter XXIV, is a retrograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii led by Scott S. Sheppard in 2000, and given the temporary designation nowrap|S/2000 J 3 [ [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/07500/07555.html IAUC 7555: "Satellites of Jupiter"] 2001 January 5 (discovery)] [ [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/mpec/K01/K01A28.html MPEC 2001-A28: "S/2000 J 2, S/2000 J 3, S/2000 J 4, S/2000 J 5, S/2000 J 6"] 2001 January 5 (discovery and ephemeris)] .

Iocaste orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 20,723 Mm in 609.427 days, at an inclination of 147° to the ecliptic (146° to Jupiter's equator) with an eccentricity of 0.2874.

It was named in October 2002 after Jocasta [ [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/07900/07998.html IAUC 7998: "Satellites of Jupiter"] 2002 October 22 (naming the moon)] , the mother/wife of Oedipus in Greek mythology.

Iocaste belongs to the Ananke group, believed to be the remnants of a break-up of a captured heliocentric asteroid.Sheppard, S. S.; Jewitt, D. C.; [http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~jewitt/papers/JSATS/SJ2003.pdf "An Abundant Population of Small Irregular Satellites Around Jupiter"] , Nature, Vol. 423 (May 2003), pp. 261-263 ] Nesvorný, D.; Alvarellos, J. L. A.; Dones, L.; and Levison, H. F.; [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJ/journal/issues/v126n1/202528/202528.web.pdf "Orbital and Collisional Evolution of the Irregular Satellites"] , The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 126 (2003), pp. 398–429]

The satellite is about 5 kilometres in diameterSheppard, S. S.; Jewitt, D. C.; Porco, C. C.; [http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~jewitt/papers/JUPITER/JSP.2003.pdf "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] and appears grey (colour indices B-V=0.63, R-V=0.36), similar to C-type asteroids.Grav, T.; Holman, M. J.; Gladman, B. J.; and Aksnes, K.; [http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0301016 "Photometric survey of the irregular satellites"] , Icarus, Vol. 166 (2003), pp. 33-45]

ee also

*Irregular satellites

References

#

Ephemeris [http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/NatSats/NaturalSatellites.html IAU-MPC NSES]
#Mean orbital parameters [http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?sat_elem NASA JPL]

External links

* [http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~jewitt/irregulars.html David Jewitt pages]
* [http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~sheppard/satellites/urasatdata.html Scott Sheppard pages]