“Magaclite”: the moon with a typo

How a one-letter mistake in 2002 still echoes through research papers and catalogues.

Published 2026-10-23

Most moons get one name. Megaclite effectively got two.^[1]

October 2002

Its discovery designation was S/2000 J 8. In October 2002 the moon was named — but the name was initially published with the erroneous spelling “Magaclite”.^[1]

November 2002

The mistake was corrected a month later to Megaclite, after the mother of Thebe and Locrus by Zeus.^[1]

A long tail

Corrections don’t reach everything. Some research published after the naming kept using “Magaclite”.^[1] And when we looked at JPL’s Planetary Satellite Mean Elements table on 23 October 2026, Jupiter XIX (code 519) still appeared under the “Magaclite” spelling.^[3]

Why it matters

For a moon whose physical properties are mostly unknown, searches on both spellings may be needed to find everything published about it.^[1]

Numbered citations link to the sources list on the Megaclite overview page.