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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
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.
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.
Charon, discovered in 1978, has the distinction of being the solar system's largest moon relative in size to the planet it orbits. It is about half the diameter and an eighth the mass of Pluto, a ...
The distinction between a satellite and a classical planet was not recognized until after the heliocentric model of the Solar System was established. When in 1610 Galileo discovered the first satellites of another planet (the four Galilean moons of Jupiter), he referred to them as "four planets flying around the star of Jupiter at unequal intervals and periods with wonderful swiftness."
It is also the largest retrograde moon in the Solar System. It accounts for more than 99.5% of all the mass known to orbit Neptune, including the planet's rings and fifteen other known moons, [i] and is also more massive than all known moons in the Solar System smaller than itself combined.
These four moons, discovered by Galileo Galilei and by Simon Marius in parallel, orbit between 400,000 and 2 million km, and are some of the largest moons in the Solar System. Irregular moons Himalia group: A tightly clustered group of prograde-orbiting moons with orbits around 11–12 million km from Jupiter [210] Carpo group