Carme (moon)

Carme Template:IPAc-en is a retrograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by Seth Barnes Nicholson at Mount Wilson Observatory in California in July 1938.<ref name="Nicholson1938"/> It is named after the mythological Carme, mother by Zeus of Britomartis, a Cretan goddess.

History

File:Carme-WISE.gif

Carme observed by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft in 2014

Carme did not receive its present name until 1975;<ref>IAUC 2846: Satellites of Jupiter 1974 October 7 (naming the moon)</ref> before then, it was simply known as Template:Nowrap. It was sometimes called "Pan"<ref name="Gaposchkin">Template:Cite book</ref> between 1955 and 1975 (Pan is now the name of a satellite of Saturn).

It gives its name to the Carme group, made up of irregular retrograde moons orbiting Jupiter at a distance ranging between 23 and 24 Gm and at an inclination of about 165°. Its orbital elements are as of 17 December 2020.<ref name="MPC127087"/> They are continuously changing due to solar and planetary perturbations.

Properties

With a diameter of Template:Val, it is the largest member of the Carme group and the fourth largest irregular moon of Jupiter.<ref name="Grav2015"/> It is light red in color (B−V=0.76, V−R=0.47), similar to D-type asteroids and consistent with Taygete, but not Kalyke.<ref name="Grav2003">Template:Cite journal</ref>

See also

• Irregular satellites
• Jupiter's moons in fiction

External links

• Carme Profile by NASA's Solar System Exploration
• David Jewitt pages
• Jupiter's Known Satellites (by Scott S. Sheppard)