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Of the Solar System's eight planets and its nine most likely dwarf planets, six planets and seven dwarf planets are known to be orbited by at least 300 natural satellites, or moons. At least 19 of them are large enough to be gravitationally rounded; of these, all are covered by a crust of ice except for Earth's Moon and Jupiter's Io. [1]
The seven largest natural satellites in the Solar System (those bigger than 2,500 km across) are Jupiter's Galilean moons (Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa), Saturn's moon Titan, Earth's moon, and Neptune's captured natural satellite Triton. Triton, the smallest of these, has more mass than all smaller natural satellites together.
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
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.
For Earth this means a period of just under 12 hours at an altitude of approximately 20,200 km (12,544.2 miles) if the orbit is circular. [16] Molniya orbit: A semi-synchronous variation of a Tundra orbit. For Earth this means an orbital period of just under 12 hours. Such a satellite spends most of its time over two designated areas of the ...
Twenty-four of the known moons are regular satellites; they have prograde orbits not greatly inclined to Saturn's equatorial plane, [8] with the exception of Iapetus which has a prograde but highly inclined orbit, [9] [10] an unusual characteristic for a regular moon. They include the seven major satellites, four small moons that exist in a ...
Although the Moon is Earth's only natural satellite, there are a number of near-Earth objects (NEOs) with orbits that are in resonance with Earth. These have been called "second" moons of Earth or "minimoons". [2] [3] 469219 Kamoʻoalewa, an asteroid discovered on 27 April 2016, is possibly the most stable quasi-satellite of Earth. [4]
The moons of the Neso group have the largest orbits of any natural satellites discovered in the Solar System to date, with average orbital distances over 125 times the distance between Earth and the Moon and orbital periods over 25 years. [34]