Pasiphae group
The Pasiphae group is a group of retrograde irregular satellites of Jupiter that follow similar orbits to Pasiphae and are thought to have a common origin.
Their semi-major axes range between 22.6 and 24.3 million km, their inclinations between 141.5° and 157.3°, and their eccentricities between 0.22 and 0.44.
The International Astronomical Union reserves names ending in -e for all retrograde moons, which includes all those in the Pasiphae group.
Origin
For most of the 20th century, there were only eight known irregular satellites orbiting Jupiter, half of them prograde and half of them retrograde. It was thought that the progrades and retrogrades each formed their own group, with each group being associated with their own collisional family, or even that all eight satellites all shared a single collisional origin. These proposals were hard to support and were replaced by alternative theories as new moons were discovered.The Pasiphae group is believed to have been formed when Jupiter captured an asteroid which subsequently broke up after a collision. The original asteroid was not disturbed heavily: the original body is calculated to have been 60 km in diameter, about the same size as Pasiphae; Pasiphae retains 99% of the original body's mass. However, if Sinope belongs to the group, the ratio is much smaller, 87%.
Unlike the Carme and Ananke groups, the theory of a single impact origin for the Pasiphae group is not accepted by all studies. This is because the Pasiphae group, while similar in semi-major axis, is more widely dispersed in inclination, which also causes some moons to be later reassigned to different groups as time goes on. It is suggested sometimes that Sinope might be not a part of the remnants of the same collision and captured independently instead. The differences in color class between the objects also suggest that the group could have a more complex origin than a single collision.
Image:TheIrregulars [JUPITER Pasiphae CORE i.svg|thumb|left|300px|This diagram compares the orbital elements and relative sizes of the core members of the Pasiphae group. The horizontal axis illustrates their average distance from Jupiter, the vertical axis their orbital inclination, and the circles their relative sizes.]
[Image:TheIrregulars JUPITER Pasiphae i.svg|thumb|right|300px|This diagram compares the wide dispersion of the Pasiphae group (red) with the more compact Ananke (blue) and Carme (green) groups.]
List
The members of the Pasiphae group are :| Name | Diameter | Semi-Major Axis | Period | Notes |
| Pasiphae | 58 | –734.42 | largest member and group prototype | |
| Sinope | 38 | –744.60 | red colour | |
| Callirrhoe | 7 | –749.79 | reddish colour | |
| Megaclite | 6 | –752.86 | reddish colour | |
| Autonoe | 4 | –749.61 | ||
| Eurydome | 3 | –707.86 | ||
| Sponde | 2 | –737.95 | ||
| S/2003 J 4 | 2 | –709.12 | ||
| Aoede | 4 | –749.07 | ||
| Hegemone | 3 | –728.77 | ||
| Cyllene | 2 | –743.21 | ||
| Kore | 2 | –769.42 | can reach 38.5 million km from Jupiter | |
| Philophrosyne | 2 | –694.20 | ||
| S/2003 J 23 | 2 | –751.40 | ||
| S/2011 J 2 | 1 | –708.29 | ||
| S/2017 J 1 | 2 | –747.44 | ||
| S/2017 J 6 | 2 | –724.47 | ||
| S/2016 J 4 | 1 | –718.04 |