Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovered Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, on March 25, 1655. It was nearly 300 years later, in 1944, when Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper discovered one of the characteristics that makes Titan exceptional: this distant moon actually has an atmosphere.
What is the largest moon ever discovered?
Ganymede /ˈɡænɪmiːd/, a satellite of Jupiter (Jupiter III), is the largest and most massive of the Solar System’s moons. The ninth-largest object in the Solar System, it is the largest without a substantial atmosphere.
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Ganymede (moon)
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Composition by volume | Oxygen |
Is Ganymede bigger than Mercury?
Size, Mass and Orbit:
With a mean radius of 2634.1 ± 0.3 kilometers (the equivalent of 0.413 Earths), Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system and is even larger than the planet Mercury.
Can we live on Triton moon?
It is very cold on Triton, about -300 degrees. There is almost no atmosphere, but what there is is like Saturn’s moon Titan because there is Nitrogen. Nitrogen is one of the waste products left behind by life forms. Unfortunately Triton is inside the magnetosphere of Neptune, which is very harmful to life.
How big is Titan vs Earth?
Frequently described as a planet-like moon, Titan is 50% larger (in diameter) than Earth’s Moon and 80% more massive. It is the second-largest moon in the Solar System after Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, and is larger than the planet Mercury, but only 40% as massive.
What are the 4 Galilean moons?
A comparison “portrait” of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons Io, Europa, Gany- mede, and Callisto, each with different characteristics.
Can we breathe on Ganymede?
In 1996, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope found evidence of a thin oxygen atmosphere. However, it is too thin to support life as we know it; it is unlikely that any living organisms inhabit Ganymede.
Is Ganymede a God?
Ganymede is the god of homosexual love and desire. He was a divine hero whose homeland was Troy and was the most beautiful of mortals.
What is the smallest moon?
Miranda (moon)
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Satellite of | Uranus |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 480 × 468.4 × 465.8 km |
| Mean radius | 235.8±0.7 km (0.03697 Earths) |
Which Moon has the most water?
In 2015, NASA confirmed that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars. Also in 2015, scientists used data from NASA’s Cassini mission to discover that a global ocean lies beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Scientists believe that Jupiter’s moon Europa has a subsurface ocean as well.
What planet can we breathe on?
Because the atmosphere of Venus is mostly carbon dioxide, oxygen and nitrogen — ordinary breathable air — would float. The air that’s holding you up is also the air that you can breathe. The lifting gas is your environment.”
Why can we not live on Neptune?
Neptune’s environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures, pressures and materials that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme and volatile for organisms to adapt to.
Can we breathe on Neptune?
Neptune’s lack of Oxygen
It has a hydrogen, helium and methane atmosphere. So, it would be impossible for us to breath on the planet Neptune, which is another obstacle for humans living there. … We would have to use a spacesuit and oxygen canister permanently on Neptune if we visited the planet.
Can we breathe on Titan?
Another theoretically possible means to become airborne on Titan would be to use a hot air balloon-like vehicle filled with an Earth-like atmosphere at Earth-like temperatures (because oxygen is only slightly denser than nitrogen, the atmosphere in a habitat on Titan would be about one third as dense as the surrounding …
Is there gold in space?
As it turns out, there’s a giant asteroid that contains enough gold and other metals to make everyone on Earth a multibillionaire. And NASA uses gold to protect spacecraft from radiation. With all the gold out in space, extraterrestrial mining is a real possibility.
Can you survive on Mars without a spacesuit?
Mars is perhaps the only other potentially-habitable planet in our solar system, but you still couldn’t live there without a space suit. It’s relatively cool with an average annual temperature of -60 degrees Celsius, but Mars lacks an Earth-like atmospheric pressure.