Space · Moons

Carme

A moon of Jupiter — Namesake of the Carme group of small retrograde Jovian moons.

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Quick facts

Parent planet

Jupiter

Diameter (mean)

47 km

Mass

1.3 × 10¹⁷ kg
1.8e-06 Moon masses

Mean orbital radius

23,404,000 km

Orbital period

734.2 Earth days

Discovery year

1938

Discoverer

Seth Barnes Nicholson

Naming origin

Greek nymph, mother of Britomartis by Zeus

Surface conditions

Carme is a small, dark, retrograde irregular moon 47 km across, the namesake of the Carme group of similarly-orbiting satellites likely formed when a larger parent body was disrupted after capture. Nicholson discovered it in 1938 from Mount Wilson, the second of his five Jovian moon discoveries.

Missions and observations

Every Jupiter-system mission has had an opportunity to image or characterize Carme. The list below is the Jupiter-system mission catalog; specific Carme encounters are documented in mission archives.

Mission	Year at Jupiter	Status
Pioneer 10 NASA	1973	Completed
Pioneer 11 NASA	1974	Completed
Voyager 1 NASA	1979	Completed
Voyager 2 NASA	1979	Completed
Ulysses NASA/ESA	1992	Completed
Galileo NASA	1995	Completed
Cassini-Huygens NASA/ESA/ASI	2000	Completed
New Horizons NASA	2007	Completed
Juno NASA	2016	Active
Europa Clipper NASA	2030	On the way
JUICE ESA	2031	On the way

Naming etymology

Carme was a Cretan nymph who bore Britomartis (the huntress) to Zeus. The IAU adopted the name in 1975, ending decades of the unwieldy 'Jupiter XI' designation.

Methodology & sources

Diameter, mass, and orbital parameters from JPL Solar System Dynamics — Physical Parameters. Discovery year and discoverer from the JPL Satellite Discovery Circumstances. Naming etymology from the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature. Stylized SVG hero composed from NASA / JPL imagery as visual reference; no photographs are reproduced.