Callisto (moon)

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Callisto ( kə-LIST-oh) is the second-largest moon of Jupiter, after Ganymede. It is also the third-largest moon in the Solar System, following Ganymede and Saturn's moon Titan, and nearly as large as the planet Mercury, but only about a third of that planet's mass. With a diameter of 4,821 km, Callisto is roughly a third larger than Earth's Moon and orbits Jupiter on average at a distance of 1.883 million km, which is about five times further out than the Moon orbiting Earth. It is the outermost of the four large Galilean moons of Jupiter, which were discovered in 1610 with one of the first telescopes, and is today visible from Earth with common binoculars. The surface of Callisto is the oldest and most heavily cratered in the Solar System, with the surface almost completely covered with impact craters. It does not show any signatures of subsurface processes such as plate tectonics or volcanism, and is thought to have evolved predominantly under the influence of impacts. Prominent surface...

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