Praxidike , also known as , 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,IAUC 7555: Satellites of Jupiter January 5, 2001 (discovery)MPEC 2001-A29: S/2000 J 7, S/2000 J 8, S/2000 J 9, S/2000 J 10, S/2000 J 11 January 15, 2001 (discovery and ephemeris) and given the temporary designation .
It was named in August 2003 after Praxidike,IAUC 7998: Satellites of Jupiter 2002 October 22 (naming the moon) the Greek goddess of punishment.
Orbit
Praxidike orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 20,824,000 km in 609.25 days, at an inclination of 144° to the ecliptic (143° to Jupiter's equator), in a retrograde direction and with an eccentricity of 0.1840.
Praxidike belongs to the Ananke group, believed to be the remnants of a break-up of a captured heliocentric asteroid.Sheppard, S. S., Jewitt, D. C.; An Abundant Population of Small Irregular Satellites Around Jupiter , Nature, Vol. 423 (May 2003), pp.
261-263Nesvorný, D.; Alvarellos, J. L. A.; Dones, L.; and Levison, H. F.; Orbital and Collisional Evolution of the Irregular Satellites, The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 126 (2003), pp.
398–429 With an estimated diameter of 7 km, Praxidike is the second largest member of the group after Ananke itself (assumed albedo of 0.04).Sheppard, S. S.; Jewitt, D. C.; Porco, C.;  Jupiter's Outer Satellites and Trojans , in Jupiter: The Planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere, edited by Fran Bagenal, Timothy E. Dowling, and William B. McKinnon, Cambridge Planetary Science, Vol. 1, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, , 2004, pp.
263-280 Characteristics
The satellite appears grey (colour indices B-V=0.77, R-V= 0.34), typical of C-type asteroids.Grav, T.; Holman, M. J.; Gladman, B. J.; Aksnes, K.; Photometric Survey of the Irregular Satellites, Icarus, Vol. 166 (2003), pp.
33-45 References
Ephemeris IAU-MPC NSES
Mean orbital parameters NASA JPL
External links
David Jewitt pages
Scott Sheppard pages
