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Related: I find it annoying that we went through the trouble of downgrading Pluto, but we still count any rock that orbits a planet as a moon. If planets have 6
by isolli 4y ago
Related: I find it annoying that we went through the trouble of downgrading Pluto, but we still count any rock that orbits a planet as a moon. If planets have 69 moons, then it becomes tedious and I quickly lose interest in learning about them. I wish there was a definition that included our moon (obviously), made sure that Mars has at least one moon, but limited the number of moons that Jupiter and Saturn have to a handful.
Criteria could include: size or weight relative to the planet, distance to the planet, apparent size in the sky.
- philliphaydon 4y agoI had never thought about that. I just googled to find out Jupiter has 79 moons? WTF…
- midasuni 4y agoWhen I was in high school there were about 50 moons in the entire system. There were zero exoplanets now, there’s thousands today.
- isolli 4y agoI'm happy that we're finding ever more exoplanets! I remember, as a kid, that there was speculation as to whether they even existed. I'm less happy about the moon inflation in our solar system. It's pointless. I honestly find the claim that Jupiter has 79 moons misleading. A 1 km rock orbiting 20 million kilometers away, really? It's so far removed from what our moon is that we should not be using the same word to describe it. It's fine to call it a satellite.
- isolli 4y agoAccording to this website, there are dozens of "moons" that orbit 10 to 20 million of kilometers away from Jupiter and have diameters between just 1 and 10 km. It's time for a change of nomenclature! https://theplanets.org/moons/ https://theplanets.org/moons/
- dylan604 4y agoSo does Saturn. At least, maybe not exactly the same number, but a number just a large