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The seven largest natural satellites in the Solar System (those bigger than 2,500 km across) are Jupiter's Galilean moons (Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa), Saturn's moon Titan, Earth's moon, and Neptune's captured natural satellite Triton. Triton, the smallest of these, has more mass than all smaller natural satellites together.
Informally, satellites are considered irregular if they are far enough from the planet that the precession of their orbital plane is primarily controlled by the Sun, other planets, or other moons. [4] In practice, the satellite's semi-major axis is compared with the radius of the planet's Hill sphere (that is, the sphere of its gravitational ...
Saturn's satellite system is very lopsided: one moon, Titan, comprises more than 96% of the mass in orbit around the planet. The six other planemo ( ellipsoidal ) moons constitute roughly 4% of the mass, and the remaining small moons, together with the rings, comprise only 0.04%.
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."
The Roman numbering system for satellites arose with the very first discovery of natural satellites other than Earth's Moon: Galileo referred to the Galilean moons as I through IV (counting from Jupiter outward), refusing to adopt the names proposed by his rival Simon Marius. Similar numbering schemes naturally arose with the discovery of ...
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.
The new discovery increases the moons orbiting the "jewel of our solar system" to 82, surpassing Jupiter
The habitability of natural satellites is the potential of moons to provide habitats for life, though it is not an indicator that they harbor it.Natural satellites are expected to outnumber planets by a large margin and the study of their habitability is therefore important to astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life.