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Jupiter XVI

The innermost of Jupiter's many moons, Metis is one of four small satellites that orbit close to Jupiter, between that gas giant and Io, the innermost of its large Galilean Moons. The set of four small moons containing Metis are collectively known as the Amalthea Group after the largest of their number. All four circle Jupiter rapidly, but Metis and Adrastea (the next moon out from Jupiter) are notable for being the only two of Jupiter's satellites that orbit the planet in less than a Jovian day.

Metis is irregular in shape and highly elongated, some sixty kilometres along its longest axis (but only about half that distance across its shortest). Like all the inner moons, its surface is densely patterned with small craters, and it has a reddish hue, due to sulphur expelled into space by powerful volcanoes on nearby Io.

Metis the moon shares its name with another body of the Solar System: the asteroid designated 9 Metis, roughly three times the size of its namesake Jovian moon, which orbits the Sun as part of the main Asteroid Belt.


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