Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), about 30 times the diameter of Earth. Tidal forces between Earth and the Moon have synchronized the Moon's orbital period (lunar month) with its rotation period at 29.5 Earth days, causing the same side of the Moon to always face Earth.
Of the Solar System's eight planets and its nine most likely dwarf planets, six planets and seven dwarf planets are known to be orbited by at least 300 natural satellites, or moons. At least 19 of them are large enough to be gravitationally rounded; of these, all are covered by a crust of ice except for Earth's Moon and Jupiter's Io. [1]
The known icy moons in this range are all ellipsoidal (except Proteus), but trans-Neptunian objects up to 450–500 km radius may be quite porous. [10] For simplicity and comparative purposes, the values are manually calculated assuming that the bodies are all spheres. The size of solid bodies does not include an object's atmosphere.
(height above/below datum) Elevation (height above/below base) Surface temperature; Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Highest Lowest Sun: N/A 5,000,000 K In a solar flare [33] 1240 K In a sunspot [34] Mercury: 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) Caloris Montes, northwest Caloris Basin rim mountains [35] [36] 723 K Dayside of Mercury [37] 89 K Permanently shaded ...
Moons of Uranus; P. Planetary-mass moon This page was last edited on 7 February 2021, at 17:58 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons ...
The Galilean moons are named after Galileo Galilei, who observed them in either December 1609 or January 1610, and recognized them as satellites of Jupiter in March 1610; [2] they remained the only known moons of Jupiter until the discovery of the fifth largest moon of Jupiter Amalthea in 1892. [3]
In order of distance from Neptune, the regular moons are Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Galatea, Larissa, Hippocamp, and Proteus. All but the outer two are within Neptune-synchronous orbit (Neptune's rotational period is 0.6713 day or 16 hours [20]) and thus are being tidally decelerated. Naiad, the closest regular moon, is also the second smallest ...
Oberon's surface is the most heavily cratered of all the Uranian moons, with a crater density approaching saturation—when the formation of new craters is balanced by destruction of old ones. This high number of craters indicates that Oberon has the most ancient surface among Uranus's moons. [35]