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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.
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]
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 Moon is Earth's only natural satellite, orbiting at an average distance of 384 399 km (238,854 mi; about 30 times Earth's diameter). It faces Earth always with the same side. This is a result of Earth's gravitational pull having synchronized the Moon's rotation period with its orbital period (lunar month) of 29.5 Earth
These satellites are used to monitor short-term weather, long-term climate change, natural disasters. Earth observations satellites provide information for research subjects that benefit from looking at Earth’s surface from above (such as meteorology, oceanography, terrestrial ecology, glaciology, atmospheric science, hydrology, geology, and ...
Under NASA's Artemis program, the space agency aims to send commercial robot landers to the moon on science scouting missions and return astronauts to Earth's natural satellite this decade.
The habitability of natural satellites is the potential of moons to provide habitats for life, though it is not an indicator that they harbor it. Natural satellites are expected to outnumber planets by a large margin and the study of their habitability is therefore important to astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life .
Earth is orbited by one permanent natural satellite, the Moon, which orbits Earth at 384,400 km (1.28 light seconds) and is roughly a quarter as wide as Earth. The Moon's gravity helps stabilize Earth's axis, causes tides and gradually slows Earth's rotation .