Universe & space

Discovery of Callirrhoe

6 October 1999

Callirrhoe is an irregular moon of Jupiter, about nine kilometres across, and a member of the Pasiphae group of retrograde moons. It was discovered by the Spacewatch survey, an automated search for asteroids and comets run from Kitt Peak in Arizona, and was at first catalogued as an asteroid before its orbit revealed it was circling Jupiter. It orbits at a great distance in the opposite direction to the planet's rotation. It is named after a figure of Greek mythology, and its final e is the mark of a retrograde moon in Jupiter's naming scheme.

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