Astronomy

Moons - 8. Titania

Titania is the largest of the moons of Uranus and the eighth largest moon in the Solar System at a diameter of 1,578 kilometres. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Titania is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Its orbit lies inside Uranus's magnetosphere.

Earth

Third planet from the sun

Gas Giants

A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are sometimes known as failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. Uranus and Neptune, used to also be called gas giants but are now, more properly, called ice giants.

Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is the star system closest to the Solar System, being 4.37 light-years from the Sun. It consists of three stars: Alpha Centauri A (also named Rigil Kentaurus and Alpha Centauri B, which form the binary star Alpha Centauri AB, and a small and faint red dwarf, Alpha Centauri C (also named Proxima Centauri)

Moons - 3. Callisto

Callisto Moon is the second largest moon that orbit planet Jupiter and the third largest moon among all. It has a diameter of 4,821 km and estimated to be 4.5 billion years old; its surface is mostly cratered. It has not had any geological activities for most of its existence. It was discovered by Galileo Galilei on January 7, 1610. Its name is derived from Greek mythology of a nymph called Callisto.

Canopus

Canopus, also designated Alpha Carinae, is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina, and the second-brightest star in the night-time sky, after Sirius.

Moons - 6. Europa

Europa is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet. It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and was named after Europa, the legendary mother of King Minos of Crete and lover of Zeus

Moons - 1. Ganymede

Ganymede is by far the largest moon and orbits around planet Jupiter with a diameter of 5,262 kilometers. It is bigger in size than some of the planets like Mercury and Pluto and would have easily been classified as a planet if it was orbiting the sun. It has its own magnetic field. Its discovery was made by Galileo Galilei the Italian astronomer on January 7, 1610.

Moons - 4. IO

IO moon also orbits around planet Jupiter and has a diameter of 3,643 km. It is the fourth largest moon and was discovered by 1610 by Galileo Galilei. It is the most active body after Earth with volcanic activity. The surface of IO is mostly made of floodplains of liquid rock and lava lakes.

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a giant gas planet with a mass one-thousandth that of the Sun, but two-and-a-half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen with a quarter of its mass being helium, though helium comprises only about a tenth of the number of molecules. It may also have a rocky core of heavier elements, but like the other giant planets, Jupiter lacks a well-defined solid surface. Jupiter has at least 79 moons, including the four large Galilean moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Ganymede, the largest of these, has a diameter greater than that of the planet Mercury. One moon Valetudo is heading in a different direction from the other moons making collision likely. The best known feature of Jupiter is the Great Red Spot, a persistent anticyclonic storm that is larger than Earth. It is known to have been in existence since at least 1831, and possibly since 1665.

Mars

Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury. Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and the highest know planetary mountain in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, which are small and irregularly shaped possibly captured asteroids.

Mercury

Mercury is the smallest and innermost planet in the Solar System. Its orbital period around the Sun of 87.97 days is the shortest of all the planets in the Solar System. No known Satellites

Proxima Centauri

Nearest star to the sun a red dwarf, a small low-mass star, about 4.25 light-years from the Sun in the constellation of Centaurus.

Neptune

Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. In the Solar System, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus. Neptune is not visible to the unaided eye and is the only planet in the Solar System found by mathematical prediction rather than by empirical observation. Unexpected changes in the orbit of Uranus led Alexis Bouvard to deduce that its orbit was subject to gravitational perturbation by an unknown planet. Like Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune's atmosphere is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, along with traces of hydrocarbons and possibly nitrogen, but it contains a higher proportion of "ices" such as water, ammonia, and methane. However, its interior, like that of Uranus, is primarily composed of ices and rock. Largest moon Triton + 13 other known moons.

Moons - 10. Oberon

Oberon, also designated Uranus IV, is the outermost major moon of the planet Uranus. It is the second-largest and second most massive of the Uranian moons. Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, Oberon is named after the mythical king of the fairies who appears as a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Its orbit lies partially outside Uranus's magnetosphere.

Pluto

Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond Neptune. It was the first Kuiper belt object to be discovered. Reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.

Moons - 9. Rhea

Rhea is the second-largest moon of Saturn It was discovered in 1672 by Giovanni Domenico Cassini.

Saturn

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius about nine times that of Earth. Saturn's interior is probably composed of a core of iron-nickel and rock (silicon and oxygen compounds). This core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally a gaseous outer layer. The planet's prominent ring system is composed mostly of ice particles, with a smaller amount of rocky debris and dust. At least 62 moons are known to orbit Saturn. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and the second-largest in the Solar System, is larger than the planet Mercury, and is the only moon in the Solar System to have a substantial atmosphere.

Sirius

Sirius (a romanization of Greek Seirios, - "glowing" or "scorching") is a star system and the brightest star in the Earth's night sky.

Moons - 5. Earth's moon ("Luna")

The Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. The most widely accepted explanation is that the Moon formed from the debris left over after a giant impact between Earth and a Mars-sized body called Theia. The Moon is in synchronous rotation with Earth, and thus always shows the same side to earth, the near side. The Moon was first reached in 1959 by an unmanned spacecraft of the Soviet Union's Luna program; the United States' NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned lunar missions to date, beginning with the first manned orbital mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned landings between 1969 and 1972, with the first being Apollo 11 and the last Apollo 17.

Moons - 2. Titan

Titan Moon orbits Saturn and is the second largest moon with a diameter of 5,150 km. Christiaan Huygens a Dutch astronomer discovered this moon in 1655. It has a dense atmosphere that is similar to that of Earth. 90% of the atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, and the rest is methane and small amounts of ammonia, argon, and ethane. It orbits around Saturn in 16 days. The moon has seas and lakes on its surface that are filled with liquid hydrocarbons. It is the only body other than the earth that has water bodies in our solar system.

Moons - 7. Triton

Triton is the largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune, and the first Neptunian moon to be discovered. It was discovered on October 10, 1846, by English astronomer William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit, an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation.

Uranus

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. Uranus is similar in composition to Neptune, and both have different bulk chemical composition from that of the larger gas giants Jupiter and Saturn. For this reason, scientists often classify Uranus and Neptune as "ice giants" to distinguish them from the gas giants. Uranus's atmosphere is similar to Jupiter's and Saturn's in its primary composition of hydrogen and helium, but it contains more "ices" such as water, ammonia, and methane, along with traces of other hydrocarbons. Like the other giant planets, Uranus has a ring system, a magnetosphere, and numerous moons. The Uranian system has a unique configuration among those of the planets because its axis of rotation is tilted sideways, nearly into the plane of its solar orbit. Its north and south poles, therefore, lie where most other planets have their equators. It has no features on it's surface.

Venus

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. It has the longest rotation period (243 days) of any planet in the Solar System and rotates in the opposite direction to most other planets (meaning the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east). It does not have any natural satellites. It is the second-brightest natural object in the night sky after the Moon

Vesta

Vesta, minor-planet, is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of 525 kilometres. It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta, the virgin goddess of home and hearth from Roman mythology. The most prominent surface features are two enormous craters, the 500-kilometre (311 mi)-wide Rheasilvia crater, centered near the south pole, and the 400 kilometres (249 mi) wide Veneneia crater. The Rheasilvia crater is younger and overlies the Veneneia crater. A central peak rises 23 km above the lowest measured part of the crater floor and the highest measured part of the crater rim is 31 km above the crater floor low point.