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A montage of Jupiter and its four largest moons (distance and sizes not to scale) There are 95 moons of Jupiter with confirmed orbits as of 5 February 2024. [1] [note 1] This number does not include a number of meter-sized moonlets thought to be shed from the inner moons, nor hundreds of possible kilometer-sized outer irregular moons that were only briefly captured by telescopes. [4]
A number of other smaller objects, such as Huya, Salacia, 2002 UX 25, Varda, and 2013 FY 27, also have moons, although their dwarf planethood is more doubtful. This list includes all objects with a best estimated diameter above 400 km that are considered likely or official dwarf planets by other sources and astronomers, [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ...
The Galilean moons are named after Galileo Galilei, who observed them in either December 1609 or January 1610, and recognized them as satellites of Jupiter in March 1610; [2] they remained the only known moons of Jupiter until the discovery of the fifth largest moon of Jupiter Amalthea in 1892. [3]
Jupiter has surpassed Saturn with the record for the planet with the most moons in our solar system. The gas giant has a total of 92 confirmed moons, according to new observations by astronomers.
3-hour timelapse showing rotation of Jupiter and orbital motion of the moons. Jupiter is the only planet whose barycentre with the Sun lies outside the volume of the Sun, though by 7% of the Sun's radius. [130] [131] The average distance between Jupiter and the Sun is 778 million km (5.20 AU) and it completes an orbit every 11.86 years.
Europa / j ʊ ˈ r oʊ p ə / ⓘ, or Jupiter II, is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet of all the 95 known moons of Jupiter. It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System .
In April 2023, the European Space Agency launched the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission, which will explore Europa, Callisto, and, of course, Ganymede.
Located on Jupiter's moon Io, the lava lake known as Loki Patera is a whopping 127 miles across and spans over 8,300 square miles — meanwhile, Lake Ontario covers just 7,320 mi².