Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Natural satellite
Summary
A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite). Natural satellites are colloquially referred to as moons, a derivation from the Moon of Earth.
In the Solar System, there are six planetary satellite systems containing 284 known natural satellites altogether. Seven objects commonly considered dwarf planets by astronomers are also known to have natural satellites: , Pluto, Haumea, , Makemake, , and Eris. , there are 442 other minor planets known to have natural satellites.
A planet usually has at least around 10,000 times the mass of any natural satellites that orbit it, with a correspondingly much larger diameter. The Earth–Moon system is a unique exception in the Solar System; at 3,474 kilometres (2,158 miles) across, the Moon is 0.273 times the diameter of Earth and about of its mass. The next largest ratios are the Neptune–Triton system at 0.055 (with a mass ratio of about 1 to 4790), the Saturn–Titan system at 0.044 (with the second mass ratio next to the Earth–Moon system, 1 to 4220), the Jupiter–Ganymede system at 0.038, and the Uranus–Titania system at 0.031. For the category of dwarf planets, Charon has the largest ratio, being 0.52 the diameter and 12.2% the mass of Pluto.
The first known natural satellite was the Moon, but it was considered a "planet" until Copernicus' introduction of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. Until the discovery of the Galilean satellites in 1610 there was no opportunity for referring to such objects as a class. Galileo chose to refer to his discoveries as Planetæ ("planets"), but later discoverers chose other terms to distinguish them from the objects they orbited.
The first to use the term satellite to describe orbiting bodies was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his pamphlet Narratio de Observatis a se quatuor Iouis satellitibus erronibus ("Narration About Four Satellites of Jupiter Observed") in 1610.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood