User:MarcelR1/sandbox

Megaclite is considered a member of the Pasiphae group, a family of Jovian satellites which have similar orbits and are therefore thought to have a common origin. Megaclite is believed to have been formed by the remaining debris from collisions with various satellites of Jupiter, especially that of Pasiphae. Megaclite has a mean radius of 1.6 miles. At an average distance of about 14.7 million miles from Jupiter, the satellite takes about 753 Earth days to complete one orbit. It has an escape velocity of 12km/h, and to compare, the Earth's moon has an escape velocity of 8,552km/h.

Most or all of the Pasiphae satellites are thought to have begun as a single asteroid that, after being captured by Jupiter's gravity, suffered a collision which broke off a number of pieces. The bulk of the original asteroid survived as the moon called Pasiphae, and the other pieces became some or all of the other moons in the group.Their orbits are also eccentric (elliptical rather than circular) and highly inclined with respect to Jupiter's equatorial plane. This satellite was discovered by David C. Jewett, Yanga R. Fernandez, Eugene A. Magnier, and Scott. S. Sheppard on November 25, 2000 at the Mauna Kea Observatory located in Hawaii. It was originally called S/2000 J8, Megaclite was named for one of the adulterous conquests of the Roman god Jupiter. A name ending in "e" was chosen in accordance with the International Astronomical Union's policy for designating outer moons with retrograde orbits