Discovery of Himalia

Himalia is the largest of Jupiter's irregular outer moons and the sixth moon of Jupiter to be discovered. It was found by the American astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine at Lick Observatory in California, from photographic plates. Himalia orbits Jupiter in the same direction as the planet's rotation, far from it, and is the largest member of a group of similar moons that probably formed from the break-up of a captured asteroid. It was named later after a nymph in Greek mythology, having been known for decades simply by a number. The Cassini and New Horizons spacecraft glimpsed it at a distance.

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