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Some moons, minor planets and comets of the Solar System to scale (major planets not to scale) Selected moons, with Earth to scale. Nineteen moons are large enough to be round, and two, Titan and Triton, have substantial atmospheres The number of moons discovered in each year until November 2019
[70] [71] The known Solar System lacks super-Earths, planets between one and ten times as massive as the Earth, [70] although the hypothetical Planet Nine, if it does exist, could be a super-Earth orbiting in the edge of the Solar System. [72] Uncommonly, it has only small terrestrial and large gas giants; elsewhere planets of intermediate size ...
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.
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]
Artist's depiction of Haumea's ring system. A ring around Haumea, a dwarf planet and resonant Kuiper belt member, was revealed by a stellar occultation observed on 21 January 2017. This makes it the first trans-Neptunian object found to have a ring system. [32] [33] The ring has a radius of about 2,287 km, a width of ≈ 70 km and an opacity of ...
There are 293 confirmed moons in our cosmic neighborhood. By studying these worlds, astronomers hope to learn about ancient asteroid collisions, space volcanoes, and the origins of life itself.
The following is a list of Solar System objects by orbit, ordered by increasing distance from the Sun. Most named objects in this list have a diameter of 500 km or more. Most named objects in this list have a diameter of 500 km or more.
According to the IAU's explicit count, there are eight planets in the Solar System; four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and four giant planets, which can be divided further into two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). When excluding the Sun, the four giant planets account for more than ...