Aitne (moon)
Aitne or Jupiter XXXI, is a non-spherical moon of Jupiter. It was found by a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii led by Scott S. Sheppard, et al. in 2001, and given the designation S/2001 J 11.[1][2]
Aitne is about 3 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 22,285,000 km in 679.641 days, at an inclination of 166° to the ecliptic (164° to Jupiter's equator), with an orbital eccentricity of 0.393.
It was named in August 2003[3] after Aitna or Aitne, the divine personification of Mount Etna, whose sons by Zeus (Jupiter) are the Palici, the twin sicilian gods of geysers (other authors have them descend from Thalia and/or Hephaistos).
Aitne belongs to the Carme group, made up of non-spherical irregular retrograde moons orbiting Jupiter at a distance ranging between 23,000,000 and 24,000,000 km and at an inclination of about 165°.
References
- ↑ IAUC 7900: Satellites of Jupiter 2002 May 16 (discovery)[dead link]
- ↑ "MPEC 2002-J54: Eleven New Satellites of Jupiter". Archived from the original on 2012-03-20. Retrieved 2022-08-06.
- ↑ IAUC 8177: Satellites of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus2003 August 8 (naming the moon) Archived 2008-07-09 at the Wayback Machine
