Eurydome’s Discovery and How It Got Its Name
On December 9, 2001 at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, David C. Jewitt, Jan T. Kleyna and Scott S. Sheppard discovered Eurydome. When it was first discovered Eurydome was originally known as S/2001 J4. Eventually it was given the name Eurydome based on a character from Greek mythology, the mother of the Graces by Zeus, who is the Greek equivalent of Jupiter.
The name ends in an “e” to follow the International Astronomical Union’s policy of naming retrograde orbiting outer moons.
The Pasiphae Group
It is thought that all of the satellites belonging to Pasiphae must have belonged to a single asteroid, which after being captured by the gravity of Jupiter sustained an impact that broke off several pieces. The majority of this original asteroid makes up the moon Pasiphae and the rest of the pieces became moons belonging to the Pasiphae Group.
Eurydome and the other Pasiphae moons all possess an eccentric orbit, elliptical as opposed to a circular orbit. This moon group is also in retrograde, meaning that they orbit around Jupiter in the opposite direction of Jupiter’s rotation. These are some of the reasons that support the idea of the Pasiphae Group being a captured asteroid rather than forming as an original part of Jupiter.
On the other hand there are a few observations that lead to researchers believing some of the moons may not belong in the Pasiphae Group. A few of the moons appear to be a different color from the rest, ranging from gray to red. Some also orbit slightly differently from the rest, leading to belief that they may have come from a different original asteroid.
Eurydome Facts
Eurydome has an average distance of 14.3 million miles from the planet Jupiter; this gives Eurydome an orbit that takes around 717 Earth days to complete. It orbits at an inclination of 149 degrees to Jupiter’s equator. Eurydome possesses an average radius of only about 0.9 miles.
The moon Eurydome has an escape velocity of 4.4 miles per hour. Escape velocity is the speed necessary for an object to travel in order to escape from the object’s current gravity. The bigger the object is the more speed it would require in order to reach this point.
Eurydome has a surface area of 17.6 square miles and a volume of 8.7 cubic miles. Its circumference around its equator is 5.8 miles. Because of its small size Eurydome has a mass of only 99,119,949,907,702.36 pounds. Eurydome is a very small moon and is 4247.3 times smaller than the planet Earth, giving an idea of just how small this moon truly is. The moon has very little gravity on it, mostly due to its small size. Its gravity is measured to be only 0.001 m/s².