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Helike (moon)

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Helike or Jupiter XLV, is a moon of Jupiter. It was found by a team of astronomers from the University of Hawaii led by Scott S. Sheppard in 2003, and given the designation S/2003 J 6.[1][2][3]

Helike is about 4 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 20,540,000 km in 601.402 Earth days, at an inclination of 155° to the ecliptic (156° to Jupiter's equator), with an orbital eccentricity of 0.1375.

It was named in March 2005 after Helike, one of the nymphs that nurtured Zeus (Jupiter) in his infancy on Crete.[4]

Helike belongs to the Ananke group, retrograde non-spherical moons which orbit Jupiter between 19,300,000 and 22,700,000 km, at inclinations of about 150°.

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