Harry’s “Comparative Astronomy” Pages

(Or: how much one can get out of drawing circles)

 

Distances of Satellites from their Planets


The following figure depicts the distances of the most important satellites of planets. (This figure is not mine; it was made available to me, courtesy of John Rehling.)

The above figure is a bit long (1000 pixels wide), but there is a reason for that. If you look at the far right side you will see Saturn’s Iapetus, just a few pixels off the right edge. That’s not as far as satellites can go, though. Jupiter’s Sinope, for example, is around 6.6 times farther from Jupiter than Iapetus is from Saturn.

On the other hand, look how close Phobos and Deimos are to Mars!

The table below gives the distances, in kilometers, of almost all known satellites, including the ones not shown in the above diagram. Take a look in the “not shown” portions of the table, and see how far (or how close) some satellites can reach.

Earth km Jupiter km Saturn km Uranus km Neptune km
Moon 384,400 Amalthea 181,300 Janus 151,472 Miranda 129,850 Larissa 73,600
    Io 422,000 Mimas 185,520 Ariel 190,930 Proteus 117,600
Mars   Europa 670,900 Enceladus 238,020 Umbriel 265,980 Triton 354,760
Phobos 9,378 Ganymede 1,070,000 Tethys 294,660 Titania 436,270    
Deimos 23,459 Callisto 1,883,000 Dione 377,400 Oberon 583,420 Not shown  
        Rhea 527,040     Naiad 48,200
Pluto   Not shown   Titan 1,221,830 Not shown   Thalassa 50,000
Charon 19,640 Metis 128,000 Hyperion 1,481,100 Cordelia 49,752 Despina 52,600
    Adrastea 129,000 Iapetus 3,561,300 Ophelia 53,764 Galatea 62,000
    Thebe 222,000     Bianca 59,165 Nereid 5,513,400
    Leda 11,094,000 Not shown   Cressida 61,767    
    Himalia 11,480,000 Pan 133,583 Desdemona 62,659    
    Lysithea 11,720,000 Atlas 137,670 Juliet 64,358    
    Elara 11,737,000 Prometheus 139,350 Portia 66,097    
    Ananke 21,200,000 Pandora 141,700 Rosalind 69,927    
    Carme 22,600,000 Epimetheus 151,422 Belinda 75,255    
    Pasiphae 23,500,000 Telesto 294,660 Puck 86,006    
    Sinope 23,700,000 Calypso 294,660 Caliban 7,100,000    
        Helene 377,400 Sycorax 12,200,000    
        Phoebe 12,952,000        

 

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