# Ganymede

*In the Solar System*

The largest moon in the Solar System, wider than Mercury, and the only one with a magnetic field of its own, which means a molten core still stirring. Under the ice there is almost certainly a salt-water ocean, perhaps several layered between ice of different kinds. ESA's JUICE is on its way and is to go into orbit around it in 2034, the first spacecraft ever to orbit a moon other than ours.

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Radius | 2,631 km |
| Around the equator | 16,532 km |
| From the Sun | 795,415,766 km (-313,503 km/d) |
| From the Earth | 870,287,478 km (-2,167,736 km/d) |
| A signal takes | 48 min |
| Goes round | Jupiter |
| Placed to within | 1,533 km |

Distances and speed are computed from JPL Horizons trajectories and are true of 2026-10-09, changing at the rate given beside each. The interpolation itself is good to a few kilometres; what ages these figures is the date, not the arithmetic.

## Elsewhere

- On the live map: https://www.orbitalmap.space/?world=solar-system&focus=ganymede
- This object as a page: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/ganymede/
- Every object: https://www.orbitalmap.space/o/
- What this site is and what it reads: https://www.orbitalmap.space/llms.txt