List of largest lakes and seas in the Solar System

Listed below are the largest lakes and seas on various worlds in the Solar System. The table includes single bodies of water or other liquid on or near the surface of a solid body (terrestrial planet, planetoid, or moon). All objects on 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 to exist 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 (the largest moon of Jupiter), 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] In June 2020, NASA scientists reported that it is likely that exoplanets with oceans may be common in the Milky Way galaxy, based on mathematical modeling studies of their internal heating rates. The majority of such worlds would probably have subsurface oceans, similar to those of the icy moons Europa and Enceladus.[3][4]

List
Largest known lakes and seas, with composition and dimensions, where known, grouped by celestial body but sortable by size, depth, etc.
Body Type of object Lake/sea Composition Location Area (km2) Average depth (km) Image Notes
Earth planet
(terrestrial)		 World Ocean 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 Michigan–Huron 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) ?
Mars planet
(terrestrial)		 south-polar lake salt water or brine? subglacial c. 200 (shallow, > 0.2 m) there may be additional such lakes[5][6]
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;[7]
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 or 38 ± 4 global ocean under 21–26 or 23 ± 4 km of ice, based on libration[8][9]
Dione moon of Saturn (internal global ocean) water?
water–ammonia mixture?		 subsurface c. 2,700,000 65 ± 30 global ocean under 99 ± 23 km of ice[9]
Rhea moon of Saturn (internal global ocean) water?
water–ammonia mixture?		 subsurface c. 1,000,000–2,000,000 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)		 0.85 (max) only measured bathymetry is in the northern bay, Moray Sinus[12]
Ligeia Mare hydrocarbons surface 126,000 ~0.2[13]
Punga Mare hydrocarbons surface 61,000 ~0.11[13]
(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. 10,000,000–15,000,000 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
Gonggong scattered disc object (internal global ocean) water?
water–ammonia mixture?		 subsurface c. 2,000,000–3,000,000 ? 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

Notes
  1. Possible depending on the degree of differentiation of the interior,[10] which is uncertain.[11]

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: 62–70. Bibcode:2014P&SS...96...62V. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2014.03.011.
  3. Shekhtman, Lonnie; et al. (18 June 2020). "Are Planets with Oceans Common in the Galaxy? It's Likely, NASA Scientists Find". NASA. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  4. Quick, L.C.; Roberge, A.; Mlinar, A.B.; Hedman, M.M. (2020). "Forecasting Rates of Volcanic Activity on Terrestrial Exoplanets and Implications for Cryovolcanic Activity on Extrasolar Ocean Worlds". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 132 (1014): 084402. doi:10.1088/1538-3873/ab9504.
  5. Orosei, R.; Lauro, S. E.; Pettinelli, E.; Cicchetti, A.; Coradini, M.; Cosciotti, B.; Paolo, F. Di; Flamini, E.; Mattei, E.; Pajola, M.; Soldovieri, F. (2018-08-03). "Radar evidence of subglacial liquid water on Mars". Science. 361 (6401): 490–493. doi:10.1126/science.aar7268. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 30045881.
  6. Lauro, Sebastian Emanuel; Pettinelli, Elena; Caprarelli, Graziella; Guallini, Luca; Rossi, Angelo Pio; Mattei, Elisabetta; Cosciotti, Barbara; Cicchetti, Andrea; Soldovieri, Francesco; Cartacci, Marco; Di Paolo, Federico (2020-09-28). "Multiple subglacial water bodies below the south pole of Mars unveiled by new MARSIS data". Nature Astronomy: 1–8. arXiv:2010.00870. doi:10.1038/s41550-020-1200-6. ISSN 2397-3366.
  7. "Hubble observations suggest underground ocean on Jupiter's largest moon Ganymede". NASA press release. March 12, 2015. Retrieved 2015-10-03.
  8. 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: 37–47. arXiv:1509.07555. Bibcode:2016Icar..264...37T. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2015.08.037.
  10. 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. Bibcode:2006Icar..185..258H. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2006.06.005.
  11. 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. Bibcode:2016Icar..264..264T. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2015.09.022.
  12. Poggiali, V.; Hayes, A.; Mastrogiuseppe, M.; Le Gall, A. A. (2019-12-01). "The Bathymetry of Moray Sinus at Kraken Mare". AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts. 23.
  13. Hayes, Alexander G.; Lorenz, Ralph D.; Lunine, Jonathan I. (May 2018). "A post-Cassini view of Titan's methane-based hydrologic cycle". Nature Geoscience. 11 (5): 306–313. doi:10.1038/s41561-018-0103-y. ISSN 1752-0908.
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