Adrastea (moon)

Voyager 2

Adrasteia ( Jupiter XV ) is the second innermost known moon of the planet Jupiter.

Discovery

Adrasteia was discovered on July 8, 1979 by the astronomer David C. Jewitt and G. Edward Danielson on shots of the Voyager 2 spacecraft and initially received the provisional designation S/1979 J 1 In 1983, the moon was officially named after Adrasteia, a goddess from Greek mythology, which is responsible for the distribution of reward and punishment.

Path data

Adrasteia moves within Jupiter's ring system and is believed to be a source for the ring particles. It goes around Jupiter within the rotationally synchronous orbit radius and is exposed to the strong tidal forces of the giant planets. The moon is small enough not to be torn apart by the forces, however, is its orbit - as well as that of the innermost moon Metis - fall in the future, so that it eventually crashes on Jupiter. Adrasteia located within the Roche limit for liquid moons, that is, it is stable only by the cohesion of their material. Therefore, the escape velocity in the table applies to a motion perpendicular to the gas planet.

Structure and physical data

Adrasteia measures 25 × 20 × 15 km, which is about an average diameter of 20 kilometers. Their high density of 4.5 g/cm3, suggesting that it is primarily composed of silicate rock and larger proportions of iron. It has a very dark surface with an albedo of 0.05, that is, only 5% of the incident sunlight is reflected. Their apparent brightness is 18.7 m. Adrasteia rotates in 7 hours and 9 minutes around its own axis, thus showing how the Earth's moon, a tidal locking on.

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