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The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
Charles Thomas Kowal (November 8, 1940 – November 28, 2011) was an American astronomer known for his observations and discoveries in the Solar System.As a staff astronomer at Caltech's Mount Wilson and Palomar Mountain observatories between 1961 and 1984, he found the first of a new class of Solar System objects, the centaurs, discovered two moons of the planet Jupiter, and discovered or co ...
Curiosity's view of the Martian moons: Phobos passing in front of Deimos – in real-time (video-gif, 1 August 2013). Speculation about the existence of the moons of Mars had begun when the moons of Jupiter were discovered.
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]
In August 1877, the American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered the two moons of Mars using a 660 mm (26 in) telescope at the U.S. Naval Observatory. [55] The names of the two satellites, Phobos and Deimos, were chosen by Hall based upon a suggestion by Henry Madan, a science instructor at Eton College in England. [56]
The Galileo orbiter also dropped a probe into Jupiter's atmosphere in 1995, this was intended to descend as far as possible into the gas giant before being destroyed by heat and pressure. As of 2022, three bodies in the Solar System, the Moon, Mars and Ryugu [71] have been visited by mobile rovers.
1979 – Voyager 1 flies by Jupiter and discovers its faint ring system, as well as volcanoes on Io, the innermost of its Galilean moons. [201] 1979 – Voyager 2 flies by Jupiter and discovers evidence of an ocean under the surface of its moon Europa. [202] 1980 – Voyager 1 flies by Saturn and takes the first images of Titan. [203]
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 ...