Cosmic atlas
Interactive maps
Explore CosmoInsider’s connected knowledge through maps, atlases and comparisons based on our editorial records.
Documented time
Timeline
Milestones and events ordered by the date held in each record; uncertain dates retain their declared precision.
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Europa
Europa is one of Jupiter’s four large moons and the planet’s fourth-largest moon. Its icy surface and measurements pointing to a salty ocean beneath its crust make it a major target for investigating potentially habitable environments beyond Earth. Launched in 2024, the Europa Clipper mission will study whether places beneath its surface could support life.
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Callisto
Callisto is Jupiter’s second-largest moon. Its ancient surface preserves numerous craters, while Galileo data support investigation of a possible, still uncertain internal ocean.
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Ganymede
Ganymede is the Solar System’s largest moon. Its intrinsic magnetic field, evidence for a salty ocean and contrasting icy terrains make it a key world for studying ocean-moon evolution.
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Io
Io is a rocky moon of Jupiter whose intense volcanism is linked to tidal heating. Its surface and plasma environment form a dynamic system.
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Titan
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, combines a dense atmosphere, hydrocarbon lakes and an icy surface. Its internal structure remains an active research topic.
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Iapetus
Iapetus is a moon of Saturn, discovered by Giovanni Cassini in 1671, distinguished by an extreme bright-dark division, a near-equatorial ridge, and an irregular figure whose explanation remains under investigation.
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Rhea
Rhea is Saturn’s second-largest moon after Titan. Its cited diameter is about 1,527–1,528 km; it is mostly water ice, rotates synchronously with its orbit, and was associated with Cassini evidence for orbiting material in 2008.
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Dione
Dione is a Saturnian moon with a 562 km mean radius, predominantly water-ice composition, inferred interior rock, brightness contrasts, and icy canyons observed by Cassini.
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Tethys
Tethys is Saturn’s fifth-largest moon, a cold, airless and heavily impact-scarred body globally mapped with Cassini images.
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Oberon
Oberon is a major moon of Uranus, described by NASA as the outermost of the five major moons. Its ancient, heavily cratered surface, approximate half-ice and half-rock composition, and Voyager 2 imaging are the principal supplied evidence.
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Titania
Titania is Uranus’s largest moon. It was discovered by William Herschel on January 11, 1787, and was observed at close range by Voyager 2 in January 1986.
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Enceladus
Enceladus is an icy moon of Saturn whose subsurface ocean feeds plumes of vapour and ice particles. Cassini revealed an active, potentially habitable world, not a detection of life.
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Mimas
Mimas is Saturn’s smallest and innermost major moon, a heavily cratered, slightly ovoid icy world best known for the enormous Herschel crater. Voyager and Cassini-Huygens observations provide the evidence summarized here.
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Triton
Triton is Neptune’s largest moon and is notable for its retrograde orbit. Voyager 2 data revealed an icy surface, a tenuous atmosphere, active plumes, and complex geology; the supplied evidence also supports, without conclusively proving, capture from the Kuiper belt and a possible internal ocean.
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Hyperion
Hyperion is an irregular, nonspherical outer moon of Saturn, about 266 km across, notable for its porous-looking terrain, chaotic rotation, and a charged surface confirmed by Cassini.
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Ariel
Ariel is an icy moon of Uranus and one of its five major moons. The available evidence describes a very bright surface with few large craters and many small ones, suggesting that it may be the youngest Uranian moon in relative surface terms.
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Umbriel
Umbriel is a major moon of Uranus, distinguished as the darkest of the large Uranian moons and by the old, heavily cratered surface reported from Voyager 2 observations.
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Deimos
Deimos is the outer moon of Mars, a small, irregular body with a dark, cratered surface softened by deposits of regolith.
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Phobos
Phobos is the larger, inner moon of Mars: an irregular, regolith-covered body dominated by Stickney crater, with an orbit that is slowly drawing closer to the planet.
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Amalthea
Amalthea is an irregular inner moon of Jupiter. Its low density, terrain and relationship with the rings inform the study of the Jovian system’s evolution.
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Phoebe
Phoebe is a large outer moon of Saturn with an elliptical, highly inclined, retrograde orbit. Cassini-Huygens evidence characterizes it as a possible remnant planetesimal and supports gravitational capture as an interpretation, while its detailed composition, interior, and evolution remain unresolved.
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Himalia
Himalia is an irregular moon of Jupiter, ranked by NASA as the fifth largest, orbiting about 11.5 million km from the planet and thought likely to have been captured.
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Miranda
Miranda is a major moon of Uranus, discovered by Gerard P. Kuiper in 1948 and closely observed by Voyager 2 in January 1986. The imagery revealed a cratered, fractured, unusually grooved surface and a complex geological history.
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Nereid
Nereid is an outer moon of Neptune, discovered by Gerard Kuiper in 1949 and notable for having one of the most eccentric satellite orbits known in the Solar System.