Universe & space

Discovery of Kale

9 December 2001

Kale is a small irregular moon of Jupiter, only about two kilometres across, and belongs to the Carme group, a family of retrograde moons that circle the planet at a great distance in the opposite direction to its spin. The members of the group share similar orbits and are thought to be fragments of a single body captured by Jupiter and broken apart in a collision. Kale was found in a survey of the planet's outer moons made by astronomers at the University of Hawaii. Like others in this family, its name comes from Greek mythology, and as a retrograde moon it ends in the letter e.

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