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Nineteen moons are large enough to be round, and two, Titan and Triton, have substantial atmospheres The number of moons discovered in each year until November 2019. Mercury, the smallest and innermost planet, has no moons, or at least none that can be detected to a diameter of 1.6 km (1.0 mi). [2]
Largest moons to scale with their parent planets and dwarf planet. Besides planets and dwarf planets objects within our Solar System known to have natural satellites are 76 in the asteroid belt (five with two each), four Jupiter trojans, 39 near-Earth objects (two with two satellites each), and 14 Mars-crossers. [2]
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 ...
[37] [2] These discoveries brought Saturn's total number of confirmed moons up to 145, making it the first planet known to have over 100 moons. [37] [38] [39] Yet another moon, S/2006 S 20, was announced on 23 May 2023, bringing Saturn's total count moons to 146. [2]
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]
[7] [34] Both moons have very circular orbits which lie almost exactly in Mars's equatorial plane, and hence a capture origin requires a mechanism for circularizing the initially highly eccentric orbit, and adjusting its inclination into the equatorial plane, most probably by a combination of atmospheric drag and tidal forces, [35] although it ...
Uranus has five major moons: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. They range in diameter from 472 km for Miranda to 1578 km for Titania. [21] All these moons are relatively dark objects: their geometrical albedo varies between 30 and 50%, whereas their Bond albedo is between 10 and 23%. [25] Umbriel is the darkest moon and Ariel the ...
However, such an impact should have created additional debris (more moons), yet no moons or rings were discovered by New Horizons, ruling out any more moons of significant size orbiting Pluto. [1] An alternative hypothesis is that the collision happened at about 2,000 miles per hour, not powerful enough to destroy Charon and Pluto.