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Awesome Video Shows Size Comparison Of Jupiter's Ridiculous Number Of Moons

Jupiter has so many moons we haven't even bothered officially naming the last 23.

James Felton

James Felton

James Felton

James Felton

Senior Staff Writer

James is a published author with four pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.

Senior Staff Writer

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A woman looks up at another planet heading towards earth
We'll stick with our trusty moon, thanks. Image credit: Tithi Luadthong/Shutterstock.com

Jupiter has a frankly ridiculous number of moons. So many, in fact, that we haven't even bothered officially naming the last 23. Of the moons, you are probably most familiar with Europa, Io, and Ganymede, but there are 80 moons in total that we know of.

A new video has put the scale of those moons into perspective, after (of course) comparing them to the size of New York City. The animation by MetaBallStudios takes you from the smallest moons, still big enough to crush much of New York, to Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System, bigger than Mercury.

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If you would like to feel even tinier, here is a time-lapse of Jupiter's Galilean moons Europa and Io orbiting the gas giant, showing you just how big Jupiter is because three Earths can fit in the Great Red Spot

The time-lapse was made by Kevin M.Gill, a NASA-JPL engineer and expert processor of planetary images. He used images taken by the Cassini space probe on a flyby of Jupiter in 2001 (in order to gain a gravitational assist, while also imaging the gas giant and making other observations) before it plunged to its death on Saturn. 


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spaceSpace and PhysicsspaceAstronomy
  • tag
  • cassini,

  • jupiter,

  • europa,

  • Ganymede,

  • io,

  • Great Red Spot,

  • Astronomy

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