Key facts
- Discovered by
- Scott S. Sheppard
- Discovery site
- Cerro Tololo Obs.
- Discovery date
- 23 March 2017
- Designation
- Jupiter LXV
- Pronunciation
- / p æ n ˈ d aɪ ə /
- Named after
- Πανδία Pandīa
- Alternative names
- S/2017 J 4
- Observation arc
- 7 years, 2024-12-03 (last obs)
- Satellite of
- Jupiter
- Group
- Himalia group
- Proper semi major axis
- 11,481,000 km (0.07675 AU ) AU
- Proper inclination
- 29.0° (to ecliptic )
- Proper mean motion
- 521.969928 deg / yr
- Proper orbital period
- 0.68969 yr , (251.911 d )
- Precession of perihelion long
- 9201.409 arcsec / yr
- Precession of asc node
- 4451.925 arcsec / yr
- Mean diameter
- ≈ 3 km
- Albedo
- 0.04 (assumed)
via Wikipedia infobox
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Pandia /pænˈdaɪə/, also designated Jupiter LXV, is a small outer natural satellite of Jupiter discovered by Scott S. Sheppard on 11 May 2018, using the 4.0-meter Víctor M. Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Observatory, Chile. It was announced alongside nine other Jovian moons on 17 July 2018 and it provisionally designated S/2017 J 4 by the Minor Planet Center, after observations were collected over a long enough time span to confirm the satellite's orbit. The satellite has been found in precovery observations as early as 2003.
Pandia is part of the Himalia group, a tight cluster of prograde irregular moons of Jupiter that follow similar orbits to Himalia at semi-major axes between 11–12 million km (6.8–7.5 million mi) and inclinations between 26–31°. With an estimated diameter of 3 km (1.9 mi) for an absolute magnitude of 16.2, it is one of the smallest known members of the Himalia group.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Pandia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.