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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 ...
Parts-per-million chart of the relative mass distribution of the Solar System, each cubelet denoting 2 × 10 24 kg. This article includes a list of the most massive known objects of the Solar System and partial lists of smaller objects by observed mean radius. These lists can be sorted according to an object's radius and mass and, for the most ...
With a diameter of about 5,270 kilometres (3,270 mi) and a mass of 1.48 × 10 20 tonnes (1.48 × 10 23 kg; 3.26 × 10 23 lb), Ganymede is the largest and most massive moon in the Solar System. [45] It is slightly more massive than the second most massive moon, Saturn's satellite Titan, and is more than twice as massive as the Earth's Moon.
Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope are giving scientists a fuller understanding about the composition and evolution of Pluto's moon Charon, the largest moon orbiting any of our solar ...
2015 – New Horizons spacecraft flies by Pluto, providing the first ever sharp images of its surface, and its largest moon Charon. [247] 2017 – 'Oumuamua, the first known interstellar object crossing the Solar System, is identified. [248] 2019 – Closest approach of New Horizons to Arrokoth, a KBO farther than Pluto. [249]
Charon and Earth’s moon are both a large fraction of the size of the main body they orbit, which is unlike other smaller moons orbiting planets throughout our solar system. (Pluto has four ...
Most of them are quite small. Seven moons are large enough to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, including Titan, the second largest moon in the Solar System. Including these large moons, 24 of Saturn's moons are regular, and traditionally named after Titans or other figures associated with the mythological Saturn.
The largest, Ganymede, is the largest moon in the Solar System and surpasses the planet Mercury in size (though not mass). Callisto is only slightly smaller than Mercury in size; the smaller ones, Io and Europa, are about the size of the Moon. The three inner moons — Io, Europa, and Ganymede — are in a 4:2:1 orbital resonance with each other.