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Parts-per-million chart of the relative mass distribution of the Solar System, each cubelet denoting 2 × 10 24 kg. This article includes a list of the most massive known objects of the Solar System and partial lists of smaller objects by observed mean radius. These lists can be sorted according to an object's radius and mass and, for the most ...
With a diameter of about 5,270 kilometres (3,270 mi) and a mass of 1.48 × 10 20 tonnes (1.48 × 10 23 kg; 3.26 × 10 23 lb), Ganymede is the largest and most massive moon in the Solar System. [45] It is slightly more massive than the second most massive moon, Saturn's satellite Titan, and is more than twice as massive as the Earth's Moon.
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.
It is about half the diameter and an eighth the mass of Pluto, a dwarf planet that resides in a frigid region of the outer Solar System called the Kuiper Belt, beyond the most distant planet Neptune.
Among them is Ganymede, the largest and most massive moon in the Solar System. Its 87 known irregular moons are organized into two categories: prograde and retrograde. The prograde satellites consist of the Himalia group and three others in groups of one. The retrograde moons are grouped into the Carme, Ananke and Pasiphae groups.
Charon and Earth’s moon are both a large fraction of the size of the main body they orbit, which is unlike other smaller moons orbiting planets throughout our solar system. (Pluto has four ...
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."
Of all the large moons in the solar system, it’s also the only one to orbit in the opposite direction of its planet—a likely remnant of its capture. Dense Triton is rockier than the other ...