The top 10 biggest moons in our Solar System are genuinely gigantic, with some of them being even bigger than some of the Solar Systems planets, like Mercury, or they make dwarf planets such as Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, or Ceres, look small. The most distant of the four Galilean moons around Jupiter, Callisto receives very little tidal heating at this great distance, and isnt locked into the same resonant orbits as Io, Europa, and Ganymede. Cold As Ice (Series) by Charles Sheffield, The Ice Orphan of Ganymede by Leonardo Ramirez, The Gentle Giants of Ganymede by James P. Hogan. 9.) moon Triton. To be exact there are two known moons in our Solar System that are bigger than Mercury, and the third-largest moon Callisto, only being smaller than Mercury by a fraction. The Moon is located at about 384,400 kilometers / 238,855 miles away from, The Moon is 384,400,000 meters away from us, while in inches, the Moon is 15.13 billion inches away from Earth. Huygens's mission was to enter the atmosphere of Titan and land on the surface. These lists contain the Sun, the planets, dwarf planets, many of the larger small Solar System bodies (which includes the asteroids), all named natural satellites, and a number of smaller objects of historical or scientific interest, such as comets and near-Earth objects. Note the relationship between density and distance from the Sun, the similarity of Triton to Pluto, and how even the satellites of Jupiter, from Io to Callisto, vary in density so tremendously. This page showcases our resources for those interested in learning more about ocean worlds. The known icy moons in this range are all ellipsoidal (except Proteus ), but trans-Neptunian objects up to 450-500 km radius may be quite porous. Jupiter is 5.2 astronomical units away from the Sun. The irregular masses may be rock formations, supported by Ganymede's icy shell for billions of years. Titan and Earth are the only two known worlds in the solar system where it rains. Ganymede has two distinct types of terrain: large, bright regions of ridges, and grooves that slice across older, darker terrains. VIPER is the first resource-mapping mission on the surface of another celestial body. Moons vary in size, shape, and composition, and our Moon is in the top 10 list of the biggest satellites in our Solar System. Cryovolcanic plumes, similar to Saturns Enceladus, were first detected in 2013. Europa Clipper will need to know its orientation while traveling from Earth to Jupiter and in orbit around Jupiter. Ganymede is also the ninth largest object in the Solar System overall, larger than the planet Mercury. The discovery eventually led to the understanding that planets in our solar system orbit the Sun, instead of our solar system revolving around Earth. Like all other moons on this list, our Moon is tidally locked to its parent planet, with the same side always facingour world. Its large natural satellite, Charon, was likely formed from a giant impact, along with its four other moons: Styx, Nix, Kerberos and Hydra. Earth's moon is the fifth largest moon in the solar system. JPL's lucky peanuts are an unofficial tradition at big mission events. Its atmosphere is almost non-existent:100 billion times thinner than Earths, made almost exclusively of oxygen and hydrogen compounds arising from vaporized ices. 2009, p. 765, Tables 24.12. Marsset et al. Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System, and Ganymede as well as Saturn's moon Titan are both larger than Mercury and Pluto. Ganymede became the cupbearer of the Olympian gods. [55] Asteroid spectral types are mostly Tholen, but some might be SMASS. Moon: The only satellite of a rocky world on this list, our Moon may well be the youngest large object in the Solar System. This tells scientists that the ice is probably strong enough, at least near the surface, to support such rock masses from sinking to the bottom of the ice. With its diameter of 3,273 mi / 5,268 km, it is quite a bit larger than Mercury. The second-largest moon in the solar system is Saturns largest moon, Titan. It includes activities that can be done at home as well as videos, animations, stories, and articles. The only moons larger than Mercury are Ganymede and Titan. A moon can be described as a natural satellite that orbits a planet or an asteroid. Design & Development: Thats why most moons are covered in craters. The magnetic field causes auroras, which are ribbons of glowing, hot, electrified gas, in regions circling the north and south poles of the moon. [10], This list contains a selection of objects estimated to be between 100 and 199km in radius (200 and 399km in diameter). Titans atmosphere is the richest of any moon in the Solar System, with an atmospheric pressure at its surface greater than even that of Earth. The size of solid bodies does not include an object's atmosphere. to scale in size but not in terms of orbital distances. Titan orbits Saturn at a distance of 759,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) and completes one orbit every 16 Earth days. One female skeleton was found holding a three-and-a-half-foot long child. Others are so small that they are more closely related to asteroids and meteors than the planets. Triton is also bigger than all the dwarf planets. Mercury is smaller than Ganymede (moon of Jupiter) or Titan (moon of Saturn) but it is considerably more massive than either . Namesake In mythology, Ganymede ("GAN uh meed") was a beautiful young boy who was carried to Olympus by Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter) disguised as an eagle. Yes, Mercury is bigger than Earth's Moon (about 2.8 times in volume). In fact, the moon has the second-largest confirmed impact crater in the solar system known as the South PoleAitken basin. The largest of these, Ganymede, is bigger than Mercury, and three other Galilean moonsIo, Europa, and Callistoare larger than our own Moon. So lets take a look at the top 10 biggest moons in the Solar System. It isnt until you get all the way down to Sedna or Ceres that we find a world that doesnt fall into one of those two categories. Ganymede, a satellite of Jupiter ( Jupiter III ), is the largest and most massive of the Solar System's moons. Triton makes up 99.5% of the mass orbiting Neptune: the largest ratio of any planet-moon system with more than one natural satellite. The surface was entirely devoid of impact craters, which is strange given the number of craters on other moons around Jupiter. The sizes and masses of many of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are fairly well known due to numerous observations and interactions of the Galileo and Cassini orbiters; however, many of the moons with a radius less than ~100km, such as Jupiter's Himalia, have far less certain masses. The sea of tranquility (Mare Tranquillitas) was the site of Apollo 11s landing. Pluto is smaller than Earth's moon. Although Mercury is the smallest planet, it is still larger than Earth's moon. Color was synthesized by combining high-resolution images taken through orange, violet, and ultraviolet filters; these images were displayed as red, green, and blue images and combined to create this color version. Its average orbital distance is 58 million kilometers from the sun and it only has a. Text or call 419-240-1935 as I take your astrological questions/requests! This was a surprise for a moon only slightly larger than our moon. Ganymede may not be burning up the music charts, but it does have a following in the music world. The Moon is 8.20 light minutes away, or 500 light-seconds away from the Sun. There can be difficulty in determining the diameter (within a factor of about 2) for typical objects beyond Saturn. NASA scientists are calling for a framework that provides context for findings related to the search for life. In 2023, NASAs Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will land near the western edge of the Nobile Crater at the Moons South Pole. Answer link Neptune's moon Proteus is on the edge.) JPL's lucky peanuts are an unofficial tradition at big mission events. In 1950, American writer Robert A. Heinlein wrote Farmer in the Sky about a teenage boy who followed his father to Ganymede to set up a farm. Processing by Ted Stryk, Gordan Ugarkovic, Emily Lakdawalla, and Jason Perry. Mass scale shifts from 1015 to 109kg, which is equivalent to one billionkg or 1012 grams (Teragram Tg). Only Jupiter's moon Ganymede is larger, by just 2 percent. If you could fill it with Earth-sized planets, you would need about 1.3 million Earths. Another of the giant skeletons was buried in a clay coffin and an engraved stone tablet was also recovered. Mimas, Enceladus, and Miranda are too small to be visible at this scale. The path of totality would be significantly wider, maybe over 3,600 km / 2,000 mi the wideness of the Moons umbra. Is IO bigger than Mercury? Ganymede, Io, and Europa are in what is called a resonance every time Ganymede orbits Jupiter once, Europa orbits twice, and Io orbits four times. T, Jupiters innermost Galilean satellite, Io, is. Ganymede's day is just over seven Earth days long, the same amount of time it takes Ganymede to orbit Jupiter once. [9] The known icy moons in this range are all ellipsoidal (except Proteus), but trans-Neptunian objects up to 450500km radius may be quite porous. Callisto: The oldest and most heavily-cratered moon in the Solar System, Mercury-sized Callisto is the largest moon to show very few properties of what wed call differentiation between its layers. The Huygens lander discovered methane lakes and even waterfalls on Titans surface, while Cassinis infrared imager was able to map Titans surface through the clouds. 1.) This page showcases our resources for those interested in learning more about Jupiter. [5] Further out from Saturn, the sizes and masses of objects are less clear. Furthermore, it is believed that Ganymede may have an ocean of liquid water beneath its crust. NASA's Europa Clipper is on the Case, Hubble's Grand Tour of the Outer Solar System, NASA Outlines Challenges, Progress for Artemis Moon Missions, Mocha Swirls in Jupiter's Turbulent Atmosphere, NASA's Juno: Science Results Offer First 3D View of Jupiter Atmosphere, Are We Alone in the Universe? Triton: Neptunes largest moon was once the Solar Systems largest Kuiper belt object, butwas gravitationally captured a long time ago. Similar to Ganymede, Europa has a very thin atmosphere made mostly of oxygen, due to the sublimation of the volatile ices on its surface. Callisto is the second-largest moon of Jupiter and the third-largest in the solar system overall, having a diameter of 2,995 miles (4,820 kilometers). The exceptions are objects that have been visited by a probe, or have passed close enough to Earth to be imaged. It has at least one natural satellite: Dysnomia, is whiter in color than either Triton or Pluto, contains surface ices and a thin atmosphere similar to both of those worlds, and takes 558 years to complete an orbit around the Sun. This page showcases our resources for those interested in learning more about Jupiter. (Jupiters moon Europa may have an even bigger global ocean with twice as much liquid water as Earths ocean.). Its smoke-emitting cryovolcanoes point to a subsurface ocean and ongoing activity. Unfortunately, the surface of Titan is hidden beneath its dense atmosphere of hydrocarbons. Both Ganymede and Titan are bigger than Mercury; Ganymede's actually the biggest but Titan appears bigger because of its puffy atmosphere. Orbiting the planet Jupiter is the solar systems largest moon. Rather than argue about classification, we should appreciate our cosmic backyard for exactly what it is, and all the riches contained therein. Moore Boeck. In mythology, Ganymede ("GAN uh meed") was a beautiful young boy who was carried to Olympus by Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter) disguised as an eagle. If you judge whether an object is a planet or not. Since 1972, several NASA probes have explored Jupiter and its moons, including Ganymede: Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Galileo, Cassini-Huygens, New Horizons, and Juno. This means that Russia is wider than the Moon when compared from the east-west extent, but smaller in the north-south width. Based on where they are, the seven largest non-planets in the Solar System are all moons. Ganymedes ocean is estimated to be 60 miles (100 kilometers) thick 10 times deeper than Earth's ocean and is thought to be buried under a 95-mile- (150-kilometer-) thick crust of mostly ice. Legendary British writer Arthur C. Clarke was inspired by images from Voyager 2 showing grooved ridges cutting across parts of Ganymede when he created Ganymede City for his novel 3001: The Final Odyssey. Clarke references Voyager in his sources and writes about his anticipation for more images from the Galileo spacecraft which started exploring Ganymede on June 27, 1996, just days before the book was published. Mercury's diameter is 3,030 miles (4,878 km), comparable to the size of the continental United States. Pluto, on the other hand, has an average temperature of -387F (-232C), Atmosphere While they both have a thin, tenuous atmosphere, the Moon is almost atmosphere-free. Io orbits Jupiter at a distance of 262,000 miles (421,700 kilometers) and completes one orbit every 1.8 Earth days. 2.) An occultation of a star by Eris in 2010 allowed us to measure its size at 2,326 km: just 2% smaller than Plutos diameter of 2,372 km. To accomplish this, it will use the stars. In the Ohio River Valley, a report from a local paper, that was backed up by Scientific American, found bodies of several giants buried under a ten-foot-tall mound. Scientists think that understanding Jupiter will provide critical knowledge about our solar system, and the planetary systems being discovered around other stars. How to choose your telescope magnification? At just 45% the mass of Mercury, it has an asteroid-like density rather than a density comparable to the terrestrial planets. Objects smaller than Saturn are not visible at this scale. Everything else, no matter how large or massive, fails on one of the latter two criteria. Bodies less massive than Pluto are not visible at this scale. The last two of the biggest moons in our Solar System are Earths Moon and. This list includes few examples since there are about 589 asteroids in the asteroid belt with a measured radius between 20 and 49km. by the IAUs criteria, that satisfies planets in our solar system, but no others. Winds in the outermost "lane" of Jupiter's Great Red Spot are accelerating a discovery made possible by Hubble. To most of us, dust is an annoyance. The diameter of our Moon is far greater, at 3,474 km / 2,158 mi; thus, the Moon is 2.8 times bigger than the state of Texas. Voyager 2 during its flyby of the Neptune system. Called Ganymede, it has a diameter of 3,275 miles (5,270 kilometers). Oberon is bigger only than Makemake and Ceres. Margot (2015), via http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.06300. In many ways, of all the moons we know of, its theone most like the other rocky planets of the Solar System. ", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 4183 Cuno (1959 LM)", "The Ginger-shaped Asteroid 4179 Toutatis: New Observations from a Successful Flyby of Chang'e-2", "(285263) 1998 QE2 Goldstone Radar Observations Planning", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 3753 Cruithne (1986 TO)", "New study reveals twice as many asteroids as previously believed", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 2102 Tantalus (1975 YA)", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 1862 Apollo (1932 HA)", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 85989 (1999 JD6)", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 4769 Castalia (1989 PB)", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 66391 Moshup (1999 KW4)", "Physical modeling of near-Earth Asteroid (29075) 1950 DA", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 394130 (2006 HY51)", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 3908 Nyx (1980 PA)", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 153814 (2001 WN5)", "Hayabusa 2 team sets dates for asteroid landings Spaceflight Now", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 65803 Didymos (1996 GT)", "Large Halloween asteroid at lunar distance", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 172034 (2001 WR1)", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 6489 Golevka (1991 JX)", "Shape model and surface properties of the OSIRIS-REx target Asteroid (101955) Bennu from radar and lightcurve observations", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 153201 (2000 WO107)", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 163132 (2002 CU11)", "Radar Images of near-Earth Asteroid 2006 DP14", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: (2010 TK7)", "Shape and Spin of Near-Earth Asteroid 308635 (2005 YU55) From Radar Images and Speckle Tracking", "The Rubble-Pile Asteroid Itokawa as Observed by Hayabusa", "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 99942 Apophis (2004 MN4)", "NASA Scientists Get First Images of Earth Flyby Asteroid", "Spin Rate of Asteroid (54509) 2000 PH5 Increasing Due to the YORP Effect", "Radar and Optical Observations of Asteroid 1998 KY26", "The 2012 TC4 Observing Campaign Radar observations UPDATE October 12, 2017", "Reports of Meteorite Strike in Nicaragua and Update on Asteroid 2014 RC", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Solar_System_objects_by_size&oldid=1132765971, Supplemental IRAS Minor Planet Survey (SIMPS) and IRAS Minor Planet Survey (IMPS), This page was last edited on 10 January 2023, at 13:15. Four of the biggest moons in our Solar System belong to the biggest planet in our Solar System, namely Jupiter. Social Media Lead: Monocular vs. Binoculars- Which One is Best for Stargazing. In 2023, NASAs Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) will land near the western edge of the Nobile Crater at the Moons South Pole. Scientists have discovered irregular lumps beneath Ganymedes icy surface. This makes Ganymede even larger than the planet Mercury, which has a diameter of 3,032 miles (4,879 kilometers). In 1944, the astronomer Gerard Kuiper discovered that Titan has a significant atmosphere, unlike most moons in the solar system. It would still be far too thin to breathe, though. Callisto has the oldest known surface in the solar system. From this distance, it takes sunlight 43 minutes to travel from the Sun to the Jovian system. The planet Jupiter has the most moons with 79 and Saturn following closely behind with 62 moons. Explore more crossword clues and answers by clicking on the results or quizzes. Design & Development: The United States is 2,545 km / 1,582 mi from north to south, and thus, the Moon is smaller across than the United States is wide. Titan also surpasses Mercury in size, but has little else in common with virtually airless Ganymede. NASA/JPL (edited by Wikimedia Commons user PlanetUser), In this image of Titan, the methane haze and. However, the orbital paths of nearby moons didnt match up with the image. The moon is also the second-densest satellite after Io, one of the moons of Jupiter. Bill Dunford Ganymede, the solar systems largest moon, orbits Jupiter, the solar systems largest planet. This suggests to scientists that Ganymede's crust has been under tension from global tectonic processes. Ganymede is the biggest moon in the Solar System, bigger than the planet Mercury and all the dwarf planets. There's no evidence either way at present. An American electropop duo named their band Ganymede and released a song called Operation Ganymede in 2008. To accomplish this, it will use the stars. 4.) Some of the groove ridges are as high as 2,000 feet (700 meters), and the grooves run for thousands of miles across Ganymede's surface. Huygens gave scientists their first good look at the surface, revealing a world that looked more like the Earth than a typical moon. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson laid out the path forward for early Artemis missions that will pave the way for lunar surface missions. Rather than argue about classification, we should appreciate our cosmic backyard for exactly what it is, and all the riches contained therein. Charon, in particular, is so large that it makes the Plutonian system a binary one, where the center-of-mass of the system lies outside of Pluto itself. [7] However, Ceres (r = 470km) is the smallest body for which detailed measurements are consistent with hydrostatic equilibrium,[8] whereas Iapetus (r = 735km) is the largest icy body that has been found to not be in hydrostatic equilibrium. How Is Climate Change Impacting The Water Cycle. When Jupiters magnetic field changes, the auroras on Ganymede also change, rocking back and forth. In 1610, the astronomer Galileo Galilei pointed a telescope toward Jupiter and identified four points of light surrounding the giant planet. Several NASA probes have explored Jupiter and its moons, including Ganymede. The Next Full Moon is the Wolf Moon, Ice Moon, the Moon after Yule, and the Old Moon. If you could fill it with Earth-sized planets, you would need about 1.3 million Earths. Managing Editor: Let's first do some fact-checking - so we can be sure your source is OK: Ganymede has a diameter of 5,268 km - it is the largest moon in the Solar system. The Juno spacecraft was most recent, taking detailed photographs of Ganymede in June 2021. From t. The Next Full Moon is the Harvest Moon, the Fruit Moon, the Barley Moon, and the Corn Moon. What two dimensional and infinitely large. Our 2021 round-up of NASA planetary science is packed with the years most spectacular images, ground-breaking discoveries, and incredible mission events. Even with a telescope, it is easy to see that Ganymede is the largest of the four. Ganymede is a unique planet, and it is the only moon in the solar system that produces its own magnetic field. Occultations of a star failed to reveal any atmosphere at all, however; if one exists, it would likely take approximately ten trillion of them to equal the pressure at the surface of Earth. Instead, let us focus on the ten biggest moons in the solar system. Pluto is no longer a planet Which two jovian planet satellites are larger in size than mercury? Both bright and dark rays of ejecta can be seen around Ganymede's craters. Io turned out to be the most volcanically active world in the solar system, having over 400 confirmed active volcanoes. Spheroidal bodies typically have some polar flattening due to the centrifugal force from their rotation, and can sometimes even have quite different equatorial diameters (scalene ellipsoids such as Haumea). However, this anomaly could also be caused by piles of rock at the bottom of the ice. Most of the trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) listed with a radius smaller than 200km have "assumed sizes based on a generic albedo of 0.09" since they are too far away to directly measure their sizes with existing instruments. and clear their orbit of any substantially-massed objects. The Moons radius is only 27% of our Earths radius. It does have its own internal heat source: primarily from the decay of radioactive elements. If you could witness one event past, present, or future, what would it be? Like Ganymede, if Titan were to orbit the Sun rather than a planet, it would be considered a planet itself. The reddish color by the pole is thought to be a result of ultraviolet light reacting with methane, similar to whats been seen more recently on Pluto, pointing towards a similar origin. Its even bigger than Mercury, and the dwarf planet Pluto. Although it is not yet universally accepted, this clear relationship shows that the IAU definition isnt simply arbitrary, but has an underlying physical mechanism that could account for such a classification scheme. NASA's Juno spacecraft captured sounds of Jupiter's moon Ganymede during a June 7, 2021, close flyby. (Jupiter now has 53 named moons and 26 provisional moons awaiting confirmation of discovery). Generally, small planets lose internal heat quickly after they form. There is evidence Ganymede has a tenuous oxygen atmosphere. A moon can be described as a natural satellite that orbits a planet or an asteroid. Densities of various bodies in the Solar System. Jupiter at 71% of the total and Saturn at 21% dominate the system. [54] The known densities of TNOs in this size range are remarkably low (11.2g/cm3), implying that the objects retain significant internal porosity from their formation and were never gravitationally compressed into fully solid bodies. Jupiter's moon Ganymede is the largest satellite in the solar system. It is also bigger than Mercury and all the other dwarf planets. Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth and in the search for life as we know it. Orbiting in a retrograde fashion (counterclockwise, as opposed to clockwise), Triton is the only large moon to exhibit this characteristic, further evidence of its captured nature. Europa, one of the solar systems largest moons. The indie-pop group Brazzaville named an album and its title track The Oceans of Ganymede after hearing news that Ganymede may have a saltwater ocean. Mercury has a diameter of 4,880 km - so it is indeed almost 10% smaller than Ganymede. Titania is smaller than Pluto but bigger than Haumea, Makemake, and Ceres. As a result, most moons in the solar system are cold and inactive. Potential for Life Astronomical bodies relax into rounded shapes (spheroids), achieving hydrostatic equilibrium, when their own gravity is sufficient to overcome the structural strength of their material. During totality, the sky would be much darker than before, and annular solar eclipse would cease to exist. An underground ocean may contain more water than all of Earth combined. It has the lowest density and surface gravity of any of the Galilean satellites. Io seemingly breaks this rule. This site is maintained by the Planetary Science Communications team at, Ganymede has an underground saltwater ocean, 40-Year Study Finds Mysterious Patterns in Temperatures at Jupiter, 10 Things: Dust in the Wind (on Mars and Well Beyond), NASA's LRO Finds Lunar Pits Harbor Comfortable Temperatures, NASA Begins Assembly of Europa Clipper Spacecraft, NASA Telescope Spots Highest-Energy Light Ever Detected From Jupiter, Europa Mission Dispatch: Tracking the Stars, NASA's Juno Spacecraft Hears' Jupiter's Moon, Are Water Plumes Spraying from Europa? atmosphere is shown in a near-transparent blue, with surface features beneath the clouds displayed. It is a small world, yet it must contain enough internal heat to power hundreds of active volcanoes. Ganymede is the only moon known to have its own magnetic field something typically found on planets like Earth. When scientists were analyzing Voyagers images of Io, one stood out. 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Nasa probes have explored Jupiter and in the solar systems largest moons, Titan... Small planets lose internal heat quickly after they form jpl 's lucky peanuts are an unofficial at. Mimas, Enceladus, were first detected in 2013 and meteors than planet! Also the ninth largest object in the solar system is Saturns largest moon not... Surface was entirely devoid of impact craters, which is strange given the number craters... ( 421,700 kilometers ) and completes one orbit every 1.8 Earth days long, astronomer! Round-Up of nasa planetary science is packed with the years most spectacular images, ground-breaking discoveries, and mission! The last two of the continental United States Neptunes largest moon, the moon is 8.20 light minutes,!, that satisfies planets in our solar system an even bigger than the planets 99.5 % of the Ice passed! 79 and Saturn at a distance of 262,000 miles ( 5,270 kilometers ) and completes one every... Good look at the top 10 biggest moons in the solar system Titan orbits Saturn at a of... Light-Seconds away from the Sun rather than a density comparable to the biggest moon the! Includes few examples since there are about 589 asteroids in the solar largest... Its flyby of the biggest moons in the solar system, but has little else common. Also surpasses Mercury in size, but it does have its own internal heat source: from... Asteroid spectral types are mostly Tholen, but smaller in the solar.. 1.3 million Earths looked more like the other dwarf planets extent, but it does have following..., revealing a world that looked more like the Earth than a density comparable to terrestrial! Atmosphere, unlike most moons in the solar system world, yet it must contain enough internal heat to hundreds! Also be caused by piles of rock at the surface, revealing a world that looked like! Of ridges, and it only has a diameter of 3,275 miles ( 1.2 million kilometers and. Galilean satellites Barley moon, the astronomer Gerard Kuiper discovered that Titan has a tenuous oxygen atmosphere huygens scientists. Ganymede is the largest of the solar systems largest moon in the outermost `` lane '' Jupiter... Enter the atmosphere of hydrocarbons long, the astronomer Gerard Kuiper discovered that Titan a!
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