Category: 3. Rings, Moons, and Pluto

For Further Exploration Articles Moons Carroll, M. “Titan: What We’ve Learned about a Strange New World.” Astronomy (March 2010): 30. Nice review of Cassini mission results. Elliot, J. “The Warming Wisps of Triton.” Sky & Telescope (February 1999): 42. About Neptune’s intriguing moon. Hayes, A., “Secrets from Titan’s Seas.” Astronomy (October 2015): 24. Good review of what we now know and…

Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: In addition to their moons, all four of the giant planets have rings, with each ring system consisting of billions of small particles or “moonlets” orbiting close to their planet. Each of these rings displays a complicated structure that is related to interactions between…

Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Pluto is not a moon, but we discuss it here because its size and composition are similar to many moons in the outer solar system. Our understanding of Pluto (and its large moon Charon) have changed dramatically as a result of the New…

Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: We shift our attention now to small worlds in the more distant parts of the solar system. Saturn’s large moon Titan turns out to be a weird cousin of Earth, with many similarities in spite of frigid temperatures. The Cassini observations of Titan…

Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: From 1996 to 1999, the Galileo spacecraft careered through the jovian system on a complex but carefully planned trajectory that provided repeated close encounters with the large Galilean moons. (Beginning in 2004, we received an even greater bonanza of information about Titan, obtained…

Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: The rings and moons (see the moons in Figure 12.2) of the outer solar system are not composed of the same materials as the mostly rocky objects in the inner solar system. We should expect this, since they formed in regions of lower temperature, cool…

“Our imaginations always fall short of anticipating the beauty we find in nature.”—Geologist Laurence Soderblom, discussing the 1989 Voyager encounter with Neptune’s moons All four giant planets are accompanied by moons that orbit about them like planets in a miniature solar system. Nearly 200 moons are known in the outer solar system—too many to name…