Carpo (moon)

IFA Hawaii

Carpo ( Jupiter XLVI ) is one of the smaller moons of the planet Jupiter.

Discovery

S/2003 J 20 was discovered on February 9, 2003 by astronomers at the University of Hawaii. The moon has received on 30 March 2005 the official name Carpo (after Hore Carpo ) of the International Astronomical Union ( IAU).

Path data

Carpo orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 16,989,000 km in 456 days 2 hours 24 minutes. The web has a large eccentricity of 0.4297 and Carpo is the outermost prograde ( rechtläufige ) Jupiter's moon, that is, the outermost moon of Jupiter, orbiting Jupiter in the same direction as this rotates about its own axis.

How Themisto seems Carpo none of the usual groups of Jupiter's moons to belong to that have similar web properties. Your current orbital inclination of about 51.4 ° to the ecliptic is above the minimum value of the Kozai effect, named after Yoshihide Kozai of this phenomenon discovered in 1962. This effect causes a periodic change between the eccentricity and the inclination. If the inclination large enough, the eccentricity can again be so large that the celestial body reaches its periapsis ( the closest distance from Jupiter) in the vicinity of the large Galilean moons (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto ). This could lead to Carpo will eventually collide with one of the large moons or thrown through their gravitational forces from the Jovian system.

Physical data

Carpo has a diameter of about 3 km. Their density is estimated to be 2.6 g / cm ³, if they should be constructed primarily of silicate rock. It has a very dark surface with an albedo of 0.04, i.e., only 4% of the incident sunlight is reflected. Their mean apparent magnitude is 23.0 m.