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The Galilean moons are by far the largest and most massive objects to orbit Jupiter, with the remaining 91 known moons and the rings together comprising just 0.003% of the total orbiting mass. Of Jupiter 's moons, eight are regular satellites with prograde and nearly circular orbits that are not greatly inclined with respect to Jupiter's ...
The Galilean moons are named after Galileo Galilei, who observed them in either December 1609 or January 1610, and recognized them as satellites of Jupiter in March 1610; [2] they remained the only known moons of Jupiter until the discovery of the fifth largest moon of Jupiter Amalthea in 1892. [3]
Ganymede, or Jupiter III, is the largest and most massive natural satellite of Jupiter, and in the Solar System. Despite being the only moon in the Solar System with a substantial magnetic field, it is the largest Solar System object without a substantial atmosphere. Like Saturn 's largest moon Titan, it is larger than the planet Mercury, but ...
A well-known feature of Jupiter is the Great Red Spot, [107] a persistent anticyclonic storm located 22° south of the equator. It was first observed in 1831, [ 108 ] and possibly as early as 1665. [ 109 ] [ 110 ] Images by the Hubble Space Telescope have shown two more "red spots" adjacent to the Great Red Spot.
Io (/ ˈ aɪ. oʊ /), or Jupiter I, is the innermost and second-smallest of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter.Slightly larger than Earth's moon, Io is the fourth-largest moon in the Solar System, has the highest density of any moon, the strongest surface gravity of any moon, and the lowest amount of water by atomic ratio of any known astronomical object in the Solar System.
0.1 μPa (10 −12 bar) [15] Europa / jʊˈroʊpə / ⓘ, or Jupiter II, is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet of all the 95 known moons of Jupiter. It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System. Europa was discovered independently by Simon Marius and Galileo Galilei [2] and was ...
Metis / ˈmiːtəs /, also known as Jupiter XVI, is the innermost known moon of Jupiter. It was discovered in 1979 in images taken by Voyager 1, and was named in 1983 after the Titaness Metis, the first wife of Zeus and the mother of Athena. Additional observations made between early 1996 and September 2003 by the Galileo spacecraft allowed its ...
The magnetosphere of Jupiter is the cavity created in the solar wind by Jupiter's magnetic field.Extending up to seven million kilometers in the Sun's direction and almost to the orbit of Saturn in the opposite direction, Jupiter's magnetosphere is the largest and most powerful of any planetary magnetosphere in the Solar System, and by volume the largest known continuous structure in the Solar ...