Discovery of Amalthea

Date: September 9, 1892 • Location: Santa Clara County, United States

At the Lick Observatory in California, Edward Emerson Barnard discovered Amalthea (pictured), a moon of Jupiter and the last natural satellite to be discovered by visual observation.

The Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory owned and operated by the University of California. It is on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, United States. The observatory is managed by the University of California Observatories, with headquarters on the University of California, Santa Cruz, campus, where its scientific staff moved in the mid-1960s. It is named after James Lick, who donated the funds for its construction.