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Callisto (/ k ə ˈ l ɪ s t oʊ / kə-LIST-oh), or Jupiter IV, is the second-largest moon of Jupiter, after Ganymede.In the Solar System it is the third-largest moon after Ganymede and Saturn's largest moon Titan, and nearly as large as the smallest planet Mercury.
Use of NASA logos, insignia and emblems is restricted per U.S. law 14 CFR 1221.; The NASA website hosts a large number of images from the Soviet/Russian space agency, and other non-American space agencies.
The largest, Ganymede, is the largest moon in the Solar System and surpasses the planet Mercury in size (though not mass). Callisto is only slightly smaller than Mercury in size; the smaller ones, Io and Europa, are about the size of the Moon. The three inner moons — Io, Europa, and Ganymede — are in a 4:2:1 orbital resonance with each other.
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 size of solid bodies does not include an object's atmosphere. For example, Titan looks bigger than Ganymede, but its solid body is smaller. For the giant planets , the "radius" is defined as the distance from the center at which the atmosphere reaches 1 bar of atmospheric pressure.
Planetary-mass satellites larger than Pluto, the largest Solar dwarf planet. The three largest satellites Ganymede, Titan, and Callisto are of similar size or larger than the planet Mercury; these and four more – Io, the Moon, Europa, and Triton – are larger and more massive than the largest and most massive dwarf planets, Pluto and Eris.
According to the IAU's explicit count, there are eight planets in the Solar System; four terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and four giant planets, which can be divided further into two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). When excluding the Sun, the four giant planets account for more than ...
The Jupiter radius or Jovian radius (R J or R Jup) has a value of 71,492 km (44,423 mi), or 11.2 Earth radii (R 🜨) [2] (one Earth radius equals 0.08921 R J). The Jupiter radius is a unit of length used in astronomy to describe the radii of gas giants and some exoplanets. It is also used in describing brown dwarfs.