Jupiter's Moons
Credit: NASA/JPL
Jupiter has 67 confirmed moon's orbiting around it, which is the largest number of any planet in our Solar System. The four largest moons are known collectively as the Galilean Moon's as they were discovered by Galileo in the year 1610.
The rest of Jupiter's moons are much. much smaller. In fact if you added together the other 63 moons they would have a mass of only 1/4500th of the smallest Galilean moon, Europa.
Jupiter also has a ring around it, but it is much less spectacular than the rings of Saturn, and very faint.
| Facts and Figures | Io | Europa | Ganymede | Callisto | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| a 1 Earth Mass = 5,980,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kg | |||||
| Distance from Jupiter (km) | 421,600 | 670,900 | 1,070,000 | 1,883,000 | |
| Radius (km) | 1,815 | 1,569 | 2,631 | 2,400 | |
| Mass (Earth Masses) a | 0.015 | 0.008 | 0.025 | 0.018 | |
| Time of Orbit (Earth Days) | 1.77 | 3.55 | 7.15 | 16.69 | |
| Day Length (Earth Days) | 1.77 | 3.55 | 7.15 | 16.69 | |
