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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]
The existence of a lunar core is still debated; however, if it does have a core it would have formed synchronously with the Earth's own core at 45 million years post-start of the Solar System based on hafnium-tungsten evidence [36] and the giant impact hypothesis. Such a core may have hosted a geomagnetic dynamo early on in its history. [28]
Jupiter has 95 moons with known orbits; 72 of them have received permanent designations, and 57 have been named. Its eight regular moons are grouped into the planet-sized Galilean moons and the far smaller Amalthea group. They were named after lovers of Zeus, the Greek equivalent of Jupiter.
Europa (Jupiter II), the second of the four Galilean moons, is the second closest to Jupiter and the smallest at 3121.6 kilometers in diameter, which is slightly smaller than Earth's Moon. The name comes from a mythical Phoenician noblewoman, Europa , who was courted by Zeus and became the queen of Crete , though the name did not become widely ...
In visible and near-infrared light, the rings have a reddish color, except the halo ring, which is neutral or blue in color. [3] The size of the dust in the rings varies, but the cross-sectional area is greatest for nonspherical particles of radius about 15 μm in all rings except the halo. [8] The halo ring is probably dominated by ...
As I wrote in that article, Jupiter’s main ring is primarily made of dust, and may be due to small particles impacting the two moons Metis and Adrastea; sunlight would push on the dust part ...
Jupiter's moons were classified into four groups of four, based on their similar orbital elements. [204] This picture has been complicated by the discovery of numerous small outer moons since 1999. Jupiter's moons are divided into several different groups, although there are two known moons which are not part of any group (Themisto and Valetudo ...
The sun, Earth and Jupiter will nearly align perfectly in the solar system on Monday, Sept. 26, during an event that happens once every 13 months called the Jupiter opposition. This is also around ...