Philophrosyne ( or ), also Jupiter LVIII and provisionally known as , is a natural satellite of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

. It was discovered by a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii led by

Scott S. Sheppard Scott Sander Sheppard (born 1977) is an American astronomer and a discoverer of numerous moons, comets and minor planets in the outer Solar System. He is an astronomer in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Scie ...

, ''et al.'' in 2003, but then

lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

. It was recovered in 2017 and given its permanent designation that year.

Characteristics

Philophrosyne is about 2 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 22,721,000 km in 699.676 days, at an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

of 142° to the ecliptic (142° to Jupiter's equator), in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.0932. It belongs to the

Pasiphae group The Pasiphae group is a group of retrograde irregular satellites of Jupiter that follow similar orbits to Pasiphae and are thought to have a common origin. Their semi-major axes (distances from Jupiter) range between 22.8 and 24.1 million km (th ...

, retrograde irregular moons that orbit Jupiter between 22.8 and 24.1 Gm, at inclinations of roughly 150-155°.

Name

The moon was named in 2019 after

Philophrosyne Philophrosyne was the ancient Greek female spirit of welcome, friendliness, and kindness. Her sisters were Euthenia, Eupheme, and Eucleia. Along with her sisters, she was regarded as a member of the younger Charites. According to the Orphic frag ...

(Φιλοφροσύνη), the ancient Greek spirit of welcome, friendliness, and kindness, the daughter of Hephaestus and

Aglaea Aglaea () or Aglaïa (; grc, Ἀγλαΐα, lit=festive radiance) is one of the three ''Charites'' or ''Gratiae'' (Graces) in Greek mythology. Family According to Hesiod, Aglaea is the youngest of the Charites, the three daughters of Zeus a ...

and granddaughter of

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label=Genitive case, genitive Aeolic Greek, Boeotian Aeolic and Doric Greek#Laconian, Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label=Genitive case, genitive el, Δίας, ''D� ...

. The name originated from a naming contest held on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

where it is suggested by users including CHW3M Myth Experts (@Chw3mmyths) which is an 11th-grade history class studying Greek and Roman philosophy as of 2019, Victoria (@CharmedScribe), and Lunartic (@iamalunartic) who has concurrently helped in naming another Jovian moon Eupheme.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Philophrosyne (Jupiter Moon) Pasiphae group Moons of Jupiter Irregular satellites Discoveries by Scott S. Sheppard Astronomical objects discovered in 2003 Moons with a retrograde orbit