Aoede

Discovery
Aoede was discovered by Scott S. Sheppard, David C. Jewitt, Jan T. Kleyna, Yanga R. Fernandez and Henry H. Hsieh on February 8th 2003 at the Mauna Kea Observatory located in Hawaii.

In-Depth
Aoede is considered a member of the Pasiphae group, a family of Jovian satellites that have similar orbits and, therefore must have similar origins.

Most or possibly all of the Pasiphae satellites began as asteroid captured in Jupiter's gravity, then suffered a collision which broke of piece from the parent moon. The bulk of the original moon is still in Jupiter's orbit today and is named Pasiphae. Some or all of the pieces became members of the Pasiphae group.

All of the Pasiphae moons are retrograde, they orbit in the opposite direction of the parent planet's rotation. Their orbits are also eccentric (elliptical rather than circular) and highly inclined with respect to Jupiter's equatorial plane. These characteristics support the idea that the Pasiphae satellites began as captured asteroids, rather than forming as Jupiter's original system.

Compared to Jupiter's other satellites groups, scientists are giving up on the idea that all of the individual moons were involved in a single collision. This is due to difference in colour (from grey to red), differences in orbital eccentricity and inclination among the members of the Pasiphae group. Sinope, in particular, is suspected to have started out as an independent asteroid.

Scientists currently have 2 theories for the suspected independant asteroid. If Sinope does not belong in the Pasiphae group, then the individual moon named Pasiphae still holds 99% of the mass of the original asteroid. If Sinope, then Pasiphae still retains 87% of the original asteroid. None of the Pasiphae members are strong enough to pull itself into a sphere, so they're probably irregularly shaped.

Aoede has a mean radius of two kilometres (assuming an albedo of 0.4). This satellite takes 761 Earth days to complete one orbit, with an average distance of 14.9 million miles (24 million kilometres).

Namesake
Originally designated S/2003 J7, Aode was named for one of the Muses, who were daughters of Zeus (the Greek equivalent the Roman god Jupiter). Aoede translates to song.

Moons ending in "e" mean they have a retrograde orbit, they orbit in the opposite direction of the parent planet's rotation (Aoede was chosen for this).