Planetary Satellites
• Satellite
• Any body that orbits
antoher
• Natural satellites are
moons
• 6 of the 8 planets have
at least one moon
• Mercury and Venus
do NOT have a moon
• Earth
• 1 moon
• Mars
• 2 moons
• Phobus & Deimos
• Jupiter
• At least 28 moons
• 4 largest are Io,
Ganymede, Europa
and Callisto
• Saturn
• 24 moons
• Largest is Titan
• Uranus
• 21 moons
• 5 major moons are
Titania, Oberon,
Umbriel, Ariel and
Miranda
• Neptune
• 8 moons
• Triton is the largest
• Pluto
• 1 moons
• Charon – almost the
same size as Pluto
Solar System Debris
• Comets
• A mixture of dust, gas
and ice that orbits the
sun
• Nicknamed “dirty
snowballs”
• Haley’s comet comes
around every 76
years, last seen in
1986
• Comet
• Coma (ice and dust)
and a tail (gas)
• Comets orbit the
sun….
• The tail of the comet
gets “blown” away by
the solar wind
• Asteroids
• Solid, rock-like
fragments orbiting the
sun between mars and
jupiter
• Meteoroids
• Icy, rocky fragments
anywhere in space
• Meteors
• Meteoroids that enter
Earth’s atmosphere
and begin to “burn”
due to the presence of
oxygen
• Meteor Showers
• “shooting stars”
• Meteorites
• A meteoroid that
survives the trip through
our atmosphere and
actually impacts the
Earth’s surface, forming
impact craters