For other uses, see Moons of Jupiter (disambiguation).
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[update].[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] All together, Jupiter's moons form a satellite system called the Jovian system. The most massive of the moons are the four Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, which were independently discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and Simon Marius and were the first objects found to orbit a body that was neither Earth nor the Sun. Much more recently, beginning in 1892, dozens of far smaller Jovian moons have been detected and have received the names of lovers (or other sexual partners) or daughters of the Roman god Jupiter or his Greek equivalent Zeus. The Galilean moons are by far the largest and most massive objects to orbit Jupiter, with the remaining 91 known moons and the rings together composing just 0.003% of the total orbiting mass.
Of Jupiter's moons, eight are regular satellites with prograde and nearly circular orbits that are not greatly inclined with respect to Jupiter's equatorial plane. The Galilean satellites are nearly spherical in shape due to their planetary mass, and are just massive enough that they would be considered major planets if they were in direct orbit around the Sun. The other four regular satellites, known as the inner moons, are much smaller and closer to Jupiter; these serve as sources of the dust that makes up Jupiter's rings. The remainder of Jupiter's moons are outer irregular satellites whose prograde and retrograde orbits are much farther from Jupiter and have high inclinations and eccentricities. The largest of these moons were likely asteroids that were captured from solar orbits by Jupiter before impacts with other small bodies shattered them into many kilometer-sized fragments, forming collisional families of moons sharing similar orbits. Jupiter is expected to have about 100 irregular moons larger than 1 km (0.6 mi) in diameter, plus around 500 more smaller retrograde moons down to diameters of 0.8 km (0.5 mi).[5] Of the 87 known irregular moons of Jupiter, 38 of them have not yet been officially named.
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inner moons, nor hundreds of possible kilometer-sized outer irregular moons that were only briefly captured by telescopes. All together, Jupiter'smoons form...
System (after the heliosphere). Jupiter forms a system of 95 known moons and probably many more, including the four large moons discovered by Galileo Galilei...
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice, formerly JUICE) is an interplanetary spacecraft on its way to orbit and study three icy moonsofJupiter: Ganymede...
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explosion of discoveries in the 21st century, new moons have once again started to be left unnamed even after their numbering, beginning with Jupiter LI and...
moonsofJupiter. The name of Pluto's moon Charon was suggested by James W. Christy, its discoverer, soon after its discovery. The other four moons are...
2012 as part of its Cosmic Vision programme to explore three ofJupiter's Galilean moons, with a possible Ganymede lander provided by Roscosmos. JUICE...
the mass of the planet alone, or the mass of the entire Jovian system to include the moonsofJupiter. Jupiter is by far the most massive planet in the...
motions ofJupiter'smoons, so that navigators could determine their longitude Johannes Kepler recognized at least as early as 1622 that Jupiter'smoons obey...
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between the moonsof these giant planets. The terms eclipse, occultation, and transit are also used to describe these events. A satellite ofJupiter (for example)...
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