Jupiter's Moons

Jupiter is a huge planet with at least 95 moons known to orbit it. Its largest moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. These four moons were discovered in 1610 and were the first moons to be discovered orbiting any planet other than Earth. They are often referred to as the Galilean moons in recognition of Galileo Galilei, the astronomer who discovered them. Ganymede is tha largest of all of them. It isn't just the largest moon of Jupiter though - it's the largest in the whole solar system, even bigger than the planet Mercury.

Most of the rest of Jupiter's moons are quite small and are iikely to be asteroids that have been captured by Jupiter's gravity or fragments of other moons. Jupiter's moons are all named after partners or daughters of the Roman god Jupiter or its Greek equivalent Zeus. Not all moons yet have names so are given codenames which reference the year and order of discovery. For example, S/2017 J 5 means it's a satellite discovered in 2017 which orbits Jupiter and was the fifth one spotted that year.

Jupiter's moons are grouped into categories with other similar moons. These categories are proudly presented in our multi-coloured table of multiple colours. And following that is a list of Jupiter's moons displayed in order of distance from the mighty planet.