List of largest lakes and seas in the Solar System

Following are the largest lakes and seas on various worlds in the Solar System. Listed are single bodies of water or other liquid on or near the surface of a solid body (terrestrial planet, planetoid, or moon). All objects in this list are expected to be round, hence anything that is part of a belt or disc is expected to be a dwarf planet.

Cold surface oceans or lakes are found on two worlds, Earth and Saturn's moon Titan. Lava lakes are found on Earth and Jupiter's moon Io. Subsurface oceans or seas occur on the other Galilean moons of Jupiter, Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus, and are suspected on the some of Saturn's other moons, the asteroid Ceres, the larger trans-Neptunian objects, and ice planets in planetary systems. Recent analysis of the interior of Ganymede, taking into account the effects of salt, suggests that it and some of the other icy bodies may not have a single interior global ocean but several stacked ones, separated by different phases of ice, with the lowest liquid layer adjacent to the rocky mantle below.^[1][2]

List

Body	Type of object	Lake/sea	Composition	Location	Area (km^2)	Average depth (km)		Notes
Earth	planet (terrestrial)	Ocean Sea	salt water	surface	361,300,000	3.68 (max 11.02)		71% of Earth's surface
		Caspian Sea	salt water	surface	371,000	0.21 (max 1.02)		smallest ocean (geologically) (0.07% of Earth's surface)
		Lake Huron–Michigan	fresh water	surface	117,400	0.07 (max 0.28)		largest lake today (geologically)
		West Siberian Glacial Lake	fresh water	surface	c. 880,000 (50–60 ka)	0.036		glacial lakes during the Ice Age
		Lake Agassiz	fresh water	surface	c. 440,000 (max)	?
Ceres	asteroid	(internal ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 1,000,000?			possible subsurface equatorial ocean
Io	moon of Jupiter	Gish Bar Patera	lava	surface	9,600	?
		Loki Patera	lava	surface	< 32,000	?
Europa	moon of Jupiter	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 30,000,000	est. 50–100		global ocean under 10 to 30 km of ice, perhaps twice the volume of Earth's ocean
Ganymede	moon of Jupiter	(internal global ocean)	salt water?	subsurface	c. 80,000,000 apiece	100		100 km thick, under 150 km of ice, six times the volume of Earth's ocean;[3] possibly three oceans, one under another
Callisto	moon of Jupiter	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 65,000,000	120–180		global ocean under 135 to 150 km of ice
Enceladus	moon of Saturn	(internal global ocean)	(salt?) water	subsurface	c. 650,000	26–31		global ocean under 21–26 km of ice, based on libration[4]
Dione	moon of Saturn	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 1,000,000	?		possible global ocean under the ice
Rhea	moon of Saturn	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 1–2,000,000	c. 15		possible global ocean under the ice (c. 400 km)[lower-alpha 1]
Titan	moon of Saturn	Kraken Mare	hydrocarbons	surface	≈ 400,000 (0.5% of Titan's surface)	?
		Ligeia Mare	hydrocarbons	surface	126,000	(0.17 in places)
		(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 80,000,000	< 300		global ocean of water under < 100 km of ice
Titania	moon of Uranus	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 5,000,000	c. 15–50		possible global ocean under the ice (c. 150–200 km)
Oberon	moon of Uranus	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 3,000,000	c. 15–40		possible global ocean under the ice (c. 250 km)
Triton	moon of Neptune	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 20,000,000	c. 150–200		possible global ocean under the ice (c. 150–200 km)
Orcus	Kuiper belt object (plutino)	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 500,000	c. 15		possible global ocean under the ice (c. 200 km)
Pluto	Kuiper belt object (plutino)	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 10–15,000,000	c. 100–180		possible global ocean under the ice (c. 150–230 km)
Makemake	Kuiper belt object (cubewano)	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 3,000,000	?		possible global ocean under the ice
2007 OR10	scattered disc object	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 2–3,000,000	?		possible global ocean under the ice
Eris	scattered disc object	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 10,000,000	c. 150–200		possible global ocean under the ice (c. 150–250 km)
Sedna	sednoid	(internal global ocean)	water? water–ammonia mixture?	subsurface	c. 1,000,000	c. 15		possible global ocean under the ice (c. 200 km)

See also

• List of tallest mountains in the Solar System
• List of largest rifts and valleys in the Solar System
• List of largest craters in the Solar System

Notes

1. Possible depending on the degree of differentiation of the interior,^[5] which is uncertain.^[6]

References

1. Clavin, W. (2014-05-01). "Ganymede May Harbor 'Club Sandwich' of Oceans and Ice". Press release. Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Archived from the original on 2014-05-02. Retrieved 2014-05-04.
2. Vance, S.; Bouffard, M.; Choukroun, M.; Sotin, C. (2014-04-12). "Ganymede's internal structure including thermodynamics of magnesium sulfate oceans in contact with ice". Planetary and Space Science. 96: 62. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2014.03.011.
3. "Hubble observations suggest underground ocean on Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede". NASA press release. March 12, 2015. Retrieved 2015-10-03.
4. Thomas, P. C.; Tajeddine, R.; Tiscareno, M. S.; Burns, J. A.; Joseph, J.; Loredo, T. J.; Helfenstein, P.; Porco, C. (2016). "Enceladus's measured physical libration requires a global subsurface ocean". Icarus. 264: 37. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2015.08.037.
5. Hussmann, H.; Sohl, F.; Spohn, T. (November 2006). "Subsurface oceans and deep interiors of medium-sized outer planet satellites and large trans-neptunian objects". Icarus. 185 (1): 258–273. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2006.06.005.
6. Tortora, P.; Zannoni, M.; Hemingway, D.; Nimmo, F.; Jacobson, R. A.; Iess, L.; Parisi, M. (January 2016). "Rhea gravity field and interior modeling from Cassini data analysis". Icarus. 264: 264–273. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.022.

External links

• JPL Ocean Worlds infographic