Jason E. Andersen

Many moons

Bonus Fun Fact: Take a guess as to how many moons the planet Jupiter has. Seriously. Before you continue reading, just pause for a second, take your best guess, and store that number in your head. I’ll wait.

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Okay, are you ready? The answer is seventy nine. Jupiter has seventy nine confirmed moons orbiting around it. Mind boggling! The number gets larger as more bodies keep getting discovered, and its pretty astounding. All of those big rocks, trapped by Jupiter’s massive gravity, and kept from possibly smashing into something else, like Earth. Space is awesome!

Bonus Bonus Fun Fact: Ganymede is the largest of Jupiter’s moons and comes in at the 9th largest object in the whole solar system, just behind Earth, Venus, and Mars.

Size comparison of Earth (right), the Moon (top left), and Ganymede (bottom left). You may notice the white spots on Ganymede that look like glowing cities from space. No, they’re not alien civilizations — they’re impact craters that reveal the white silicate soil underneath.
Photo courtesy of NASA via Wikimedia Commons.

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