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Space Science

Saturn's New Moons Named 165

Posted by CowboyNeal from the huey-dewey-and-louie dept.
sebFlyte writes "The BBC is reporting that three new moons found orbiting Saturn at the end of last year have been named. 'Two moons detected in August have been given the names Methone and Pallene, while another found in October has been provisionally named Polydeuces.' Polydeuces is also reported as being a very strange object-- a trojan moon. It sits in a spot near a larger moon where the gravitational pull of the other moon (Dione here) and the planet cancel each other out."
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Saturn's New Moons Named More

Saturn's New Moons Named

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  • Polydeuce bigalow.

    Planet Gigolo
    • Polydeuces is also reported as being a very strange object-- a trojan moon.
      Those damn Trojans, just not satisfied with the territory they had they had they conquered other moons too? Khaaan! Khaaan!

  • It's a trap! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:16AM (#11786918)
    That's no Trojan moon...

  • Lagrange Points (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dj42 ( 765300 ) * on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:18AM (#11786930) Journal
    I hadn't ever really thought about Lagrange points before I read that article. They are both interesting and intuitive to me. That there is a spot between two gravitational bodies that creates a "dead" spot, around which an object can orbit in a tug of war. Neat stuff. I find that more interesting than what names they have chosen for the moons.
    • I find that nerds are always using phrases such as:

      "Yes, that's quite intuitive to me."

      Don't they know that these phrases convey no useful information and only serve the purpose of making the nerd seem even more self-centered and arrogant?

      Sure, you can impress us and show us how smart you are, but please don't do it by telling us "golly, i'm so smart."

      It's quite obnoxious.
      • "I find that nerds are always using phrases such as: "Yes, that's quite intuitive to me."
        Don't they know that these phrases convey no useful information and only serve the purpose of making the nerd seem even more self-centered and arrogant? Sure, you can impress us and show us how smart you are, but please don't do it by telling us "golly, i'm so smart."

        I felt saying it was "intuitive" conveyed useful information: the fact that I don't any real understand of the mechnics involved, but that it "feels right
        • "Isn't it a bit ironic for you to read into my comment and berate me for being arrogant in an inflamatory and aggressively ignorant post?"

          No, stupid people need to be keeped in check.
          • No, stupid people need to be keeped in check.

            Oh, be nice. I'm sure the parent wasn't written by a "stupid person." Actually, I suspect it was written by a /. nerd with a higher than average IQ. My only point was that his language sounded arrogant and that I hope people will stop using that particular phrase. No need for unfounded ad hominem attacks.
            • IMESHO (yes, you're on /.) ad hominem falls under the debating equivalent of "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent".

              Mr dj42 hardly even rates on the pomposity scale compared to many others here. To me he sounded kind of whimsical rather than elitist.

              Lagrange points might have been carefully designed to enable random cool stuff to happen in scifi stories.
          • Keeped, huh?

            Funny that the quote you copied has the word "irony" in it.

        • Isn't it a bit ironic for you to read into my comment and berate me for being arrogant in an inflamatory and aggressively ignorant post?

          I'm not quite sure what was "aggressively ignorant" about my post. It is true that I often find nerds using such phrases. My personal experience is something about which I'm not ignorant.

          That you think the mechanics "feel right," isn't really useful or even very interesting. Most people think that it "feels right" that heavier objects fall faster--many of their

        • It's exactly that, the arrogance of not having any clue about the actual math involved, but still claiming to be able to tell which statements "feel right" and which don't.

      • I find that morons are always using phrases such as "Don't they know that these phrases convey no useful information and only serve the purpose of making the nerd seem even more self-centered and arrogant?" Next time you don't "get it", just stay quiet. As they say, "it is better to remain silent and appear a fool than open your mouth and remove all doubt."
      • The basic veracity of your remark should be obvious to even the most casual observer. The rest is left as an exercise for the student. HTH HAND.

    • Re:Lagrange Points (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Eosha ( 242724 ) <esomas.hotmail@com> on Saturday February 26, 2005 @11:04AM (#11787220) Homepage
      There are five Lagrange points between any two bodies. L1,L2 and L3 lie inline with the bodies and are unstable (i.e., the slightest perturbation and you fall off). However, L4 and L5 are located off to the side, where the point and the two bodies form an equilateral triangle in the plane of the orbit. L4 and L5 are stable (you can have stable orbits around them). Trojan asteroids have been found at the Jupiter-Sun L4 and L5 points, but I believe this is the first planet-moon case.
    • Intuitive. But wrong. Libration points (or Lagrange points) are a dynamical balance between the gravitational forces of the two primary bodies, and the centripetal acceleration of the rotation of the three-body system. That's why there are libration points on the outside of each of the two primaries (L2 and L3), as well as one between them (L1). Plus two points located equidistant from both primaries (usually labelled L4 and L5).
  • ...Zero G manufacturing?

  • Trojan Moon! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Evil W1zard ( 832703 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:19AM (#11786935) Journal
    Yikes better update my anti-virus. Don't want to get infected by W32.Polydeuces.A@mm now.

  • About the names (Score:3, Funny)

    by bossesjoe ( 675859 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:20AM (#11786947)
    ....Methone and Pallene, Polydeuce? Where's the cowboy neil option?

  • Stability? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ulric ( 531205 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:20AM (#11786948) Homepage
    "It sits in a spot near a larger moon where the gravitational pull of the other moon (Dione here) and the planet cancel each other out."

    How can that possibly be stable? Wouldn't the slightest deviation lead to the moon coming crashing down in either direction?

    • Same thing as normal moons.

      Linky goodness. [montana.edu]

    • "sits" is misleading Re:Stability? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dj42 ( 765300 ) * on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:27AM (#11786996) Journal
      I believe the way the Lagrange points work (from what I read) is that the object "in it" orbits the lagrange point by being tugged back and forth... it's not just "sitting there at some fixed distance relative to the 2 bodies.

      • Fun with Newton & Lagrange (Score:5, Informative)

        by C Siren ( 862991 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:53AM (#11787170)
        Ok -- Newton's 1st & 2nd laws tell you that if you have unbalanced forces acting on an object (like a moon), that will result in an acceleration on that object. Acceleration is change in velocity, i.e. speed and direction. A moon going around in an orbit is constantly changing direction and needs a particular centripetal acceleration to stay in that orbit.

        In celestial mechanics, Lagrange points come up in the three-body problem, where you have two large bodies (eg Sun and planet, planet and large moon) and one small object (a Trojan asteroid, spacecraft, new Saturn moon).

        Lagrange points are the five places relative to the two large objects, where the third object will be held at the same position - relative to those two objects - in its orbit. In other words, there will be a net force on the third object that will result in it accelerating around the largest object at the same rate as the second largest object.*

        A Lagrange point is stable if an object near by the L point will tend to be pulled towards or orbit around that point if it's a bit off the exact point. The L point is unstable if the object tends to be pulled further away from it once it wanders a little away.

        The L1 point (in between the two large bodies), L4 and L5 points (60 deg ahead and behind the orbiting large body) are stable, the L2 and L3 points are unstable. Many of our solar observing spacecraft get sent to orbit the L1 point.

        *(Center of mass discussion left out for relative simplicity)

        • L1 point is not stable (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Some spacecrafts are in orbits around L1 and L2 point of the earth-sun system, but those orbits are only semi-stable. The spacecrafts use some of their fuel to stay in those orbits longer than they would without propulsion, but eventually they will drift out of their orbits.

          One can calculate a gravitational-rotational pseudopotential for the system (see e. g. here [montana.edu]). In this pseudopotential, L1, L2 and L3 are saddle points (pseudopotential increases along one axis in both directions and decreases along ano

        • Re:Fun with Newton & Lagrange (Score:5, Informative)

          by mybecq ( 131456 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @11:40AM (#11787468)
          The L1 point (in between the two large bodies) ... are stable.
          Actually the L1 point is unstable [montana.edu].

    • Re:Stability? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dorothy 86 ( 677356 )
      RTFA it has a 55 deg. deviance (give or take) over the course of two years.

      The lagrange spot isn't an absolute, just as with any field, there will be areas of decreasing influence. The moon can safely deviate within these grey areas, with no fear of crashing down. Seeing as how it's in orbat withing this lagrange area, it is fairly stable, because as per what that means, it's kinda stuck there by opposing forces.

      Should some (fairly large) foreign space object crash into it, then you may have cause to

    • Re:Stability? (Score:3, Informative)

      by JabberWokky ( 19442 )
      Nope - to give a quick and easy understanding, the Lagrange-points act as "virtual centers of mass", an empty point between or around two large masses that are gravitational wells.

      You can orbit around a stable L-point, and an object "floating" (i.e., little acceleration relative to the point) near it will tend to be attracted to it - and thus be stable (there are unstable Lagrange points as well, which are points in the gravity interaction that don't function like this, but are still usable).

      L-1 between S

  • Why Greek / Roman names? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Almost all the solar bodies have been (in English) named after Greek and Roman gods. Since English is a Germanic lanaguage, why not name some new ones after figures closer to home?
    • Yes, the next moon will be named Hitler!

      No that's not a death star! It's just Hitler!

    • Because we're more than likely to get into pissing contests over who or what to name the planets after. I certainly wouldn't like to have to visit Planet Nixon or the moon Roosevelt.

    • Re:Why Greek / Roman names? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mickyflynn ( 842205 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:38AM (#11787057)
      Because 'planet' is a greek name meaning 'wanderer.' Thte planets were thought to be the gods. Therefor, they named them with those names. Western civilization is largely inherited from the Greeks and the Romans. We kept the names. Besides, why the hell would we call Jupiter Lugh or Woden? It'd be weird.
      • I'm sure that the people of Woden would think that it was cool that you named a planet after them (http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&a ddress=&city=Woden&state=IA [mapquest.com])
      • Well, we've named all the planets in THIS system after greek mythological characters. What about the next system and the system after that?

        Unfortunately, if space travel becomes common, I shudder to think of who'll be naming distant planets. Corporations would be bad enough (Planet Starbuck). However, I wonder if it will end up like streets in a suburban sub-division (which generally are just made up by the contractor). A friend of mine lives on a short street called Bobbiedell Lane. What if there wa
        • Planet Starbuck? It's better than the

          System Microsoft. Where the Sun BSOD's once a year.
        • Starbuck is a character in Melvill's Moby Dick. It'd not be so bad. At least no worse than plant Lord Jim, which is a really crappy book (I really don't like Conrad).

          However, I think a more pressing issue is getting better names for hurricanes.
        • " Well, we've named all the planets in THIS system after greek mythological characters."

          Jupiter, Mars, Venus, etc, are all Roman names. Greek names would've been Zeus, Aries, Aphrodite...
        • Planet Bilious, named after the Oh God of Wine (the antithesis of Bacchus - or Dionysus, depending on your preference for mythologies). Planet Verucca, named after the Verucca Gnome. Planets Death, Pestilence and so on, after the Four Motorcyclists. Planet Hogfather, after the Discworld's pig-propelled sleigh driver. The Soul Cake Duck asteroid belt, with asteroids named after cakes - "Welcome to the Pavlova Uranium Extraction Facility!" - or ducks - "We will be landing at Daffy Station in five minutes, ple
      • The planets are named after Greek and Roman gods, but their moons have naming conventions that don't always follow that rule. Uranus's moons, for example, are normally named for characters from Shakespeare's plays.
    • That's not true, for starters. There are a lot of other names. Uranian moons are named for sprites on Pope or Shakespeare works. Saturnian moons already are starting on Nordic and other pantheons. Anyone paying attention to the recent discoveries in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt has seen American Indian names crop up. Asteroids are named for people, for the most part.

      In the case of planetary moons and surface features, rules are followed about the nomeclature to make it easier to figure out what belongs w
    • > Since English is a Germanic lanaguage

      This is a gross oversimplification. English is *partly* a Germanic language,
      but it is also partly a number of other things. In brief, the history of the
      English language goes something like this: People who spoke a Germanic
      language (Angles and Saxons and Danes and Jutes so on and so forth) moved into
      an area where there were also other people who spoke Celtic and Gaelic. Note
      that the Germanic language was already using a Latin alphabet, and the Celtic
      and Gaelic f

  • Trojans schmojans (Score:1, Informative)

    by edittard ( 805475 )
    a trojan moon. It sits in a spot near a larger moon where the gravitational pull of the other moon (Dione here) and the planet cancel each other out
    A trojan doesn't "sit" anywhwere. What's more, it's elementary calculus to work out that a point where gravitation pulls cancel out is unstable; any perturbation towards one object will, by the inverse square law, increase the attraction to that object, thus moving it even closer.
    • You end up librating about the triangular trojan points, provided the mass ratio between the planet and moon (or Sun and planet) is large enough. So you don't exactly sit in a stationary sense, but the L4 and L5 points are stable.

      You can either prove this with a little calculus or just look up. There are clusters of asteroids in Jupiter's trojan points (that's where the name comes from, in fact). They've almsot certainly been there for millions, probably billions, of years. It seems likely that they're

  • What? No law passed? (Score:3, Funny)

    by amaline ( 572260 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:27AM (#11786995)
    Naming them Ronald and Reagan?

  • Lagrange point (Score:4, Informative)

    by kbonapart ( 645754 ) <lashan_lynn&yahoo,com> on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:29AM (#11787005)
    The point between to celestial bodies (usually a planet and it's moon) where the gravity of one is equal to the gravity of the other is called the Lagrange point.

    Usually closer to the smaller of the two bodies, this point is a common location of sci-fi space stations, as there is no need to use an orbit to keep the station from decaying back into the larger bodies atmosphere.

  • Whoever named Methone (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    must have been on drugs!
  • (Dione here)

    Me too, cya.

  • Naming & Mythology (Score:5, Informative)

    by ornil ( 33732 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:37AM (#11787049)
    I was a bit surprised about the name Polydeuces, because he (the mythological character) had little to do with Troy. However, it turns out that there's another Trojan moon called Helene (now this makes sense!), and Polydeucues is Helene's brother.

  • All depends on your point of view (Score:5, Funny)

    by FunWithHeadlines ( 644929 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:38AM (#11787062) Homepage
    SATURN (Galactic News Agency) - The inhabitants of Saturn have announced that they have finally named the moon orbiting the third planet from the sun in their star system. The moon, named Xkeysdy, orbits the blue planet widely known as !3kd8dgh, which renders in Standard Galactic as "that wreteched place full of pushy peons."

    When asked why they had named the moon now after millenia of observation, one student from Saturn's top university said, "Why not, you know? I mean, like, we had named everything else of importance, dude. Even the unimportant places. So like this was all that was left."

    No comment could be received from inhabitants of !3kd8dgh, since they don't speak Standard Galactic. Moreover, they laughably think they are the only inhabitanted planet in the system, and it's considered taboo to disabuse them of this ignorance.

  • Named by whom?

  • This looks like a job for... (Score:4, Funny)

    by catisonh ( 805870 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:46AM (#11787116) Homepage
    Oh Saturn, I love your rings. They make you look so beautiful. I just love being around them for all this time.

    Oh moon, the way you circle around me makes my weather patterns get all disrupted. You are just the perfect little moon, I love you.

    Oh Saturn, I think its time for some gravitational pull...

    ...TROJAN MOON.

  • How are moons still being found? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by glrotate ( 300695 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @10:54AM (#11787171) Homepage
    We can see lightyears and lightyears away with Hubble, and other large telescopes. So how is it were still finding moons in the solar system?
  • And all this time I thought the ZZ Top song was titled after a city in Texas...
  • Didn't take long for the domain name scavengers to pick up these names. I managed to snap up methone.com. The easiest to remember in my opinion.
  • Apparently not many people paid attention to this in high school.

    The title of this article should be: Saturn's New Satellites Named.

  • Who decides? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by slasho81 ( 455509 )
    Who decides on the names of these moons?
  • That Polydeuces must be covered with dust and crap that got stuck in the Trojan point no? I mean you've got a big mass *and* a gravitational well strolling through this area full of dust and ice particles, maybe it's like the way they thought our moon might be - covered with dust so thick you could sink right into it! Maybe the whole thing's electrically charged? You could fuel a whole lot of science fiction with this, but I'd like to find out more of the real side of the moon before the sf authors have
  • I thought it said "Satan's New Moons Named". I never knew the prince of darkness was so massive.

  • Hang on... Who Named them? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CheshireCatCO ( 185193 ) on Saturday February 26, 2005 @01:55PM (#11788283) Homepage
    As far as I can see from the article and from the IAU website, the International Astronomical Union hasn't approved these names. By common agreement in the astronomical community, they have the final word on approving names. So until they meet and approve this, all that is being reported is that the Cassini team is *suggesting* names for the moons *to* the IAU. The IAU has the right to shoot down their suggestins. (I'm a bit skeptical of Polydeuces being accepted since it doesn't fit the usual scheme. But what do I know?)
  • For some reason these names are starting to remind me of the names of worlds in Populous.

    Scoqazpert
    Methone
    Bileapert
    Pallene

    Not that different, really.

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