Discovered by Scott S. Sheppard Alternative names Jupiter XXIV Orbital period 609 days Mean radius 2,600 m Orbits Jupiter | Discovery date November 23, 2000 Adjectives Ionian Discovered 23 November 2000 Absolute magnitude 15.4 | |
Periapsis 16,696,393 km (0.111 608 AU) Apoapsis 25,847,607 km (0.172 780 AU) Discoverers Yanga R. Fernández, Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt Similar Jupiter moons, Other celestial objects | ||
Iocaste (/aɪoʊˈkæstiː/ eye-o-KAS-tee; Greek: Ιοκάστη), also known as Jupiter XXIV, is a retrograde irregular satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii led by Scott S. Sheppard in 2000, and given the temporary designation S/2000 J 3.
Iocaste orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 20,723 million kilometers in 609.427 days, at an inclination of 147° to the ecliptic (146° to Jupiter's equator) with an eccentricity of 0.2874.
It was named in October 2002 after Jocasta, the mother/wife of Oedipus in Greek mythology.
Iocaste belongs to the Ananke group, believed to be the remnants of a break-up of a captured heliocentric asteroid.
The satellite is about 5 kilometres in diameter and appears grey (colour indices B−V=0.63, R−V=0.36), similar to C-type asteroids.