Arche , also known as , is a

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

. It was discovered by a team of astronomers from the

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

led by

Scott S. Sheppard Scott Sander Sheppard (born 1977) is an American astronomer and a discoverer of numerous moons, comets and minor planets in the outer Solar System. He is an astronomer in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Scie ...

on 31 October 2002, and received the temporary designation . Arche is about 3 kilometres in diameter, and orbits Jupiter at an average distance of 23,717,000 km in 746.185 days, at an

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 165° to the

ecliptic The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun. From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic agains ...

(162° to Jupiter's equator), in a retrograde direction and with an

eccentricity Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-Centre (geometry), center, in geometry * Eccentricity (g ...

of 0.149. It was named in 2005 after

Arche ''Arche'' (; grc, ἀρχή; sometimes also transcribed as ''arkhé'') is a Greek word with primary senses "beginning", "origin" or "source of action" (: from the beginning, οr : the original argument), and later "first principle" or "element". ...

, whom some Greek writers described as one of the four original

Muse In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the ...

s, an addition to the earlier three ( Aoede,

Melete In Greek mythology, Melete (Μελέτη) was one of the three original Boeotian muses before the Nine Olympian Muses were founded. Her sisters were Aoede and Mneme. She was the muse of thought and meditation. Melete literally means "ponder ...

, and

Mneme In Greek mythology, Mneme ( grc-gre, Μνήμη, Mnḗmē) was one of the three original Boeotian muses, along with her sisters Aoede and Melete before Arche and Thelxinoë were identified, increasing the number to five. Later, the Nine Olym ...

).IAUC 8502: ''Satellites of Jupiter''
2005 March 30 (naming the moon) Arche belongs to the

Carme group The Carme group is a group of retrograde irregular satellites of Jupiter that follow similar orbits to Carme and are thought to have a common origin. Their semi-major axes (distances from Jupiter) range between 22.9 and 24.1 Gm, their orbit ...

, made up of irregular retrograde moons orbiting Jupiter at a distance ranging between 23 and 24 Gm and at an inclination of about 165°.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Arche (Moon) Carme group Moons of Jupiter Irregular satellites Discoveries by Scott S. Sheppard Astronomical objects discovered in 2002 Moons with a retrograde orbit