Discovery and Observations
Thebe was discovered by Stephen P. Synnott in images from the Voyager 1 space probe taken on March 5, 1979, and was initially given the provisional designation S/1979 J 2. In 1983 it was officially named after the mythological nymph Thebe who was a lover of Zeus—the Greek equivalent of Jupiter.
After its discovery by Voyager 1, Thebe was photographed by Voyager 2 spaceprobe in 1980. However, before the Galileo spacecraft arrived at Jupiter, knowledge about it was extremely limited. Galileo imaged almost all of the surface of Thebe and put constraints on its composition.
Read more about this topic: Thebe (moon)
Famous quotes containing the words discovery and/or observations:
“It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled “a contemplative man’s recreation,” introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist’s observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man’s recreation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)