On December 19, 2000, the Cassini spacecraft, en route to Saturn, captured a very low resolution image of Himalia, but it was too distant to show any surface details.
Himalia did not receive its present name until 1975; before then, it was simply known as Jupiter VI. It was sometimes called "Hestia".
It is the largest member of the group that bears its name, five moons orbiting between 11 and 13 Gm from Jupiter at an inclination of about 27.5°.
Cassini pictured Himalia from 4.4 million km as an elongated object with axes 150 ± 20 and 120 ± 20 km, close to the Earth-based estimations. Carolyn C. Porco et al.Cassini Imaging of Jupiter's Atmosphere, Satellites, and Rings , Science, 299(March 2003), pp. 1541 - 1547. It, as the other members of its group, appears neutral (grey) with colour indices B-V=0.62, V-R= 0.4, similar to a C-type asteroid.spectrum, with a slight absorption at 3 μm which could indicate the presence of water.Chamberlain, Matthew A.; Brown, Robert H. Near-infrared spectroscopy of Himalia, Icarus, 172 (2004), pp. 163-169.
