Pull out from Jupiter Showing Moon Orbits

A swarm of Jupiter’s smaller outer moons

This visualization shows jupiter and 63 of its moons. We start close in to Jupiter showing relativly fast moving inner moons that are generally in the same orbital plane including the so called ‘Galilean moons’: Europa, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. Other inner moons are: Amalthea, Thebe, Adrastea, and Metis. These inner moons orbit Jupiter as fast as about every 7 hours to about every 17 days. These moons are also relativly close to Jupiter: from around 100 thousand to a couple of million kilometers away.

Jupiter’s Galilean moons

We pull back revealing many smaller moons much farther away (tens of millions of kilometers) in much longer orbits (up to several years). Time speeds up to show the motion of these moons in irregular orbits. The following outer moons are displayed: Himalia, Elara, Pasiphae, Sinope, Lysithea, Carme, Ananke, Leda, Callirrhoe, Themisto, Megaclite, Taygete, Chaldene, Harpalyke, Kalyke, Iocaste, Erinome, Isonoe, Praxidike, Autonoe, Thyone, Hermippe, Aitne, Eurydome, Euanthe, Euporie, Orthosie, Sponde, Kale, Pasithee, Hegemone, Mneme, Aoede, Thelxinoe, Arche, Kallichore, Helike, Carpo, Eukelade, Cyllene, Kore, S/2000 J11, S/2003 J2, S/2003 J3, S/2003 J4, S/2003 J5, S/2003 J9 ,S/2003 J10, S/2003 J12, S/2003 J15, S/2003 J16, S/2003 J17, S/2003 J18, S/2003 J19, and S/2003 J23.

Io and Jupiter’s smaller inner moons

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio