DK - WOW! The Visual Encyclopedia of Everything

140

Callisto’s icy

surface is covered by impact craters

Oceanus Procellarum (Ocean of Storms) is a vast lava-covered plain

Titan’s hazy orange

atmosphere conceals a

deep-frozen surface

with shifting icy

continents and lakes

of liquid methane

The Solar System has more than 190 moons orbiting six of the planets – only Mercury and Venus are moonless. They range in size from Ganymede, a satellite of Jupiter, which

MOONSis larger than Mercury, to S/2009 S1, a 300-metre moonlet orbiting within Saturn’s rings. All are made of rock, or rock and ice, and many have surfaces littered with impact craters, formed when the moons were bombarded by asteroids in the past. Nineteen Solar-System moons are more than 400 km (250 miles) wide. These large moons are round but the more numerous smaller moons are irregular in shape.

Uneven surface

may be a result of

the moon shattering

then reassembling Long faults with icy floors formed when Ariel’s crust expanded

Dark spots are major active volcanic centres – more than 80 have been identified

tiT

na

nari M

ad

eirbmU

l

bO

re

no rA

lei

tiT

na

ai

hT

(^) e

M

oo

n

oI

uE

or

ap

aC

ill

ts

o

aG

yn

m

de

e

hR

ae

mi M

sa

iD

no

e

nE

ec

al

ud

s

paI

te

su

eT

ht

sy

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

140_141_Moons.indd 140 03/01/19 12:10 PM