Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
S/2003 J 2
S/2003 J 2 is a natural satellite of Jupiter. It was discovered by a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii led by Scott S. Sheppard, et al. in 2003. It orbits Jupiter at a distance of about 28,570,410 km, making it Jupiter's outermost known moon. S/2003 J 2 is about 2 kilometers in diameter.
It seems to belong to a group all of its own, with semi-major axis ~29.5 Gm and inclination ~160°.
The limits of Jupiter's gravitational influence are defined by the Hill sphere, whose radius is
![\approx a_j \sqrt[3]{\frac{m_j}{3 M_s}}](a/../../upload/math/a008fe276a16a52a86e4cac2ce78cbec.png)
,
where aj and mj are Jupiter's semi-major axis and mass, and Ms is the Sun's mass. This comes out as about 52 gigametres. S/2003 J 2 reaches 36 Gm during its orbit; it is therefore possible that yet farther out moons of Jupiter are left to discover.
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