Thursday, July 11, 2019

Fly Me to 200 Moons


Jupiter has 67 moons. Saturn has 61. In fact, in total, there are nearly 200 moons in our Solar System. Thanks to National Geographic you can now take a galactic tour of all the Solar System's major moons.

Start scrolling on The Atlas of the Moons and you will take-off from the Earth to play a fleeting visit to the Moon. Keep scrolling and you can travel further out into the Solar System, visiting each of the planets in turn. Stop for gas at a planet and you can take a little tour of each of the planet's major moons.

Each of these individual moon tours includes an interactive 3D globe of the moon. The globe is accompanied with some interesting facts, about the moon's circumference and the nature of its geology & atmosphere. Each 3D globe has a small inset map on which an outline of the United States has been overlaid (to give some perspective on the moon's size). The National Geographic also provides information on each of the space missions which have visited the moon.


If you are a fan of traveling around the Solar System then you will also like NASA's Solar System Exploration website. This is a great destination for anyone who wants to learn more about the Sun, the planets (& their moons), the Kuiper Belt and the Oort Cloud.

NASA's Solar System Exploration includes interactive globes of a number of the planets and moons. Each of these interactive globes are labelled with some of the most interesting locations on each planet. If you click on these labeled locations you can view them in more detail using NASA's satellite imagery of the planet or moon. A sidebar panel can be also be opened to view more information about each selected location.

NASA's Solar System website includes an interactive map of the Solar System showing the orbits of all the planets around the Sun. The planets and Haley's Comet are interactive on the map. If you select any of the planets on the map you can click through to navigate to their dedicated section on the website.

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