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For the small outer irregular moons of Uranus, such as Sycorax, which were not discovered by the Voyager 2 flyby, even different NASA web pages, such as the National Space Science Data Center [6] and JPL Solar System Dynamics, [5] give somewhat contradictory size and albedo estimates depending on which research paper is being cited.
Irregular moons are probably minor planets that have been captured from surrounding space. Most irregular moons are less than 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) in diameter. The earliest published discovery of a moon other than Earth's was by Galileo Galilei, who discovered the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610. Over the following three ...
It remains the only spacecraft to have visited either of the ice giant planets, and was the third of five spacecraft to achieve Solar escape velocity, which allowed it to leave the Solar System. Launched 16 days before its twin Voyager 1 , the primary mission of the spacecraft was to study the outer planets and its extended mission is to study ...
Montage of planets and some moons that the two Voyager spacecraft have visited and studied. It is the only program that visited all four outer planets. A total of nine spacecraft have been launched on missions that involve visits to the outer planets; all nine missions involve encounters with Jupiter, with four spacecraft also visiting Saturn.
Mars has two relatively small (compared to Earth's) natural moons, Phobos (about 22 kilometres (14 mi) in diameter) and Deimos (about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) in diameter), which orbit close to the planet. The origin of both moons is unclear, although a popular theory states that they were asteroids captured into Martian orbit. [199]
The trajectories that enabled the Voyager spacecraft to visit the outer planets and achieve velocity to escape the Solar System Plot of Voyager 2 ' s heliocentric velocity against its distance from the Sun, illustrating the use of gravity assist to accelerate the spacecraft by Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.
The outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, compared to the inner planets Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury at the bottom right. The four outer planets, called giant planets or Jovian planets, collectively make up 99% of the mass orbiting the Sun. [h] All four giant planets have multiple moons and a ring system, although only Saturn's ...
Titan is the most distant body from Earth to have a space probe land on its surface. [116] The Huygens probe descends by parachute and lands on Titan on January 14, 2005. The Huygens probe landed just off the easternmost tip of a bright region now called Adiri. The probe photographed pale hills with dark "rivers" running down to a dark plain.