Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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
Ganymede participates in orbital resonances with Europa and Io: for every orbit of Ganymede, Europa orbits twice and Io orbits four times. [41] [42] Conjunctions (alignment on the same side of Jupiter) between Io and Europa occur when Io is at periapsis and Europa at apoapsis. Conjunctions between Europa and Ganymede occur when Europa is at ...
Galilean moons around Jupiter Jupiter · Io · Europa · Ganymede · Callisto Orbits of Jupiter's inner moons within its rings. The Galilean moons of Jupiter (Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto) were named by Simon Marius soon after their discovery in 1610. [46] However, these names fell out of favor until the 20th century.
Ganymede and Europa are two of the four largest moons orbiting Jupiter, known as the Galilean moons. Europa is similar in size to Earth’s Moon, while Ganymede is the largest moon in the whole ...
Europa, along with Jupiter's three other large moons, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto, was discovered by Galileo Galilei on 8 January 1610, [2] and possibly independently by Simon Marius.
In Greek mythology, Ganymede is the son of Tros of Dardania, [6] [7] [8] from whose name "Troy" is supposedly derived, either by his wife Callirrhoe, daughter of the river god Scamander, [9] [10] or Acallaris, daughter of Eumedes. [11]
Io, Europa, Ganymede, Titan, and Triton are generally believed to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, but Earth's Moon is known not to be in hydrostatic equilibrium, and the situation for Callisto is unclear. Another dozen moons are ellipsoidal as well, indicating that they achieved equilibrium at some point in their histories.
Europa Clipper (previously known as Europa Multiple Flyby Mission) is a space probe developed by NASA to study Europa, a Galilean moon of Jupiter. It was launched on October 14, 2024. [ 15 ] The spacecraft will use gravity assists from Mars on March 1, 2025, [ 10 ] and Earth on December 3, 2026, [ 11 ] before arriving at Europa in April 2030 ...