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Moon Space Science

Moons Can Have Their Own Moons and They Could Be Called Moonmoons (atlasobscura.com) 168

Posted by msmash from the hold-my-beer dept.
Two astronomers have asked a question for the ages: Can moons have moons? The delightful, if theoretical, answer is: Yes -- yes, they can. Sarah Laskow, writing for Atlas Obscura: As Gizmodo reports, this particular scientific inquiry began with a question from Juna Kollmeier's son. Kollemeier, who works at the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, recruited Sean Raymond, of the University of Bordeaux, to help her answer the question. In a paper posted on arXiv [PDF], they lay out their case that moons can have moons. The conditions have to be right -- the primary moon has to be big enough and far away enough from the planet it's orbiting for the smaller, secondary moon to survive. But, even given these caveats, they found that moons in our very own solar system could theoretically have their own smaller moons. Two of Saturn's moons and one of Jupiter's are candidates. So is our favorite moon -- the Earth's moon.

[...] One of the great challenges of talking about recursive places is deciding what call them. The prefix "sub-" can do a lot of work here: We can islands within islands "subislands," and in the arXiv paper, Kollmeier and Raymond call a moon's moon a "submoon." But there are other options. New Scientist notes that "moonmoon" has been put forth as a name for a moon's moon. For those of us who are less than fluent in meme culture: This is a reference to Moon Moon, sometimes described as the internet's derpiest wolf. Moon Moon was born in 2013, from a werewolf name generator, and soon started frolicking across Tumblr and all other places memes can be found.
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Moons Can Have Their Own Moons and They Could Be Called Moonmoons More

Moons Can Have Their Own Moons and They Could Be Called Moonmoons

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  • I for one, (Score:3)

    by planckscale ( 579258 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @06:10PM (#57464002) Journal
    Welcome CowboyNeilCowboyNeil

  • Um... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kargan ( 250092 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @06:12PM (#57464014) Homepage

    ...no.

    • "Moonmoon"!? WTF?

      Do they come with eggroll?

      Seriously, "sub-moon" or "secondary/tertiary moon" weren't good enough?

      I thought these guys were writing stuff for scientific journals, not the Urban Dictionary.

      Strat

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Aereus ( 1042228 )

        Damnit, Moonmoon!

      • This is absolutely ridiculous.

        There is only one Moon.

        It is a satellite of Earth.

        True, people have tended to call other satellites "moons" as sort of an incorrect shorthand; but it is indeed incorrect.

        "Moon" is the name of Earth's satellite. The others are also called satellites. But they have their own names (like Earth's does).

        Titan is not a moon. It is the name of one of another planet's satellites.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by quenda ( 644621 )

          This is absolutely ridiculous.
          There is only one Moon.

          How did you cope when you were a toddler and found there were other "Mommy"s in the world? (Mom became "my Mom").

          In English, we clearly say "the Moon" or "a moon", not "Armstrong landed on Moon", though the man himself is not a top authority on the correct use of articles.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by necro81 ( 917438 )

            "Armstrong landed on Moon", though the man himself is not a top authority on the correct use of articles

            Well played, sir.

            (or madam)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by quenda ( 644621 )

              Thanks, nice to know it wasn't completely obscure.

              But did you just assume I was binary gendered? :)

        • So how do you tell the difference between Titan and Hubble, then? They are both satellites, after all. Also, according to some definitions, Earth is a satellite of the sun. Depends which dictionary you open.

          The word "moon" is a commonly accepted term for natural satellites orbiting planets. If you want to talk about our moon specifically, use "the Moon" with a capital M, or "Luna".

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by f3rret ( 1776822 )

            So how do you tell the difference between Titan and Hubble, then? They are both satellites, after all. Also, according to some definitions, Earth is a satellite of the sun. Depends which dictionary you open.

            The word "moon" is a commonly accepted term for natural satellites orbiting planets. If you want to talk about our moon specifically, use "the Moon" with a capital M, or "Luna".

            Yeah all the "society on The Moon" sci-fi writers just LOVE calling The Moon "Luna."
            Guess it sounds fancier.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by necro81 ( 917438 )

          There is only one Moon.

          This is my Moon.
          There are many like it, but this one is mine.

      • Seriously, "sub-moon" or "secondary/tertiary moon" weren't good enough?

        I thought these guys were writing stuff for scientific journals, not the Urban Dictionary.

        I would have gone with "Satellite" myself. We already have a word for small bodies in space that orbit another.

      • The person covering the story left ten minutes too early. They missed when the FBI raided the place and arrested one of the people involved. His name was Antonio Geovanni. In the mafia he goes by the name "Tony Two Times"

    • Obviously the official name should be "Death Stars" because when you look at a satellite in orbit around another satellite, you can clearly see "that's no moon."

      Also, agreed, "moonmoon" is absurd.

    • What's wrong with "moonlet?"

      • Moonlet strongly implies a small moon. Submoon could lead people to think that too but not as much. Given that we believe there's an exomoon the size of Neptune, it could perhaps have a moonmoon the size of Earth -- or at least the Earth's moon. So these aren't necessarily small objects.

    • I recommend "Minion" or at worst "Moonion".

  • Moon or satellite? (Score:5, Informative)

    by MSG ( 12810 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @06:13PM (#57464022)

    Don't astronomers usually refer to them as satellites? I always though "moon" was the name of the Earth's satellite, specifically.

    • Re:Moon or satellite? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @06:42PM (#57464174)

      Don't astronomers usually refer to them as satellites? I always though "moon" was the name of the Earth's satellite, specifically.

      If uninitialized, "moon" is an interchangeable synonym for satellite. When capitalized, It refers specifically to the Earth's moon. Likewise, when "Satellite" is capitalized, it refers to a particular model of automobile produced by Plymouth in the 1960s.

      • "uninitialized": score another win for auto-correct

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by novakyu ( 636495 )

        No, "moon" is a word for natural satellite. Artificial satellites (like what we usually call "satellite") are never called "moon".

        • But a natural satellite is also often called simply a "satellite", making it interchangeable with "moon" in this context, as I originally said.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by novakyu ( 636495 )

            No, you got it completely backward. Just because a dog is an animal doesn't mean an animal is a dog. "Satellite" is the most encompassing term (once again, acknowledging most people mean artificial satellite when they say "satellite" in everyday language). You never say that "International Space Station is a moon around the Earth."

            • But this entire topic isn't talking about artificial satellites at all. You're the one who brought that up.

              In astronomy, satellite and moon are the same. This article is about astronomy.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by novakyu ( 636495 )

                Look, I'm not going to bother responding to someone who cannot understand definitions. Talk to anybody with an astronomy degree; a moon is a satellite, and a satellite may not be a moon.

                • I can play your OCD game too:

                  If someone pull their pants down and shows you their bare ass, that's not a satellite. So you're wrong: a moon is not necessarily a satellite.

    • I always thought the name of our moon was Luna.

      Just like the name of our sun is Sol.

      Learn something new every day.

      • Sadly, no. Luna is just the Latin word for moon. The words were created before Galileo discovered that there were other moons.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Tyrannosaurus Rex is just Latin for "Tyrant Lizard King", but that doesn't mean it's not the name of a specific species. Likewise, Luna has become the specific name of the moon around Earth (which just means "dirt" but is also one of the names of the specific ball of dirt we inhabit).

      • The International Astronomical Union was formed in 1919 in part because of the need for systematic names and definitions (like constellation boundaries) that had become urgent with the advent of astrophotography that was generating huge amounts of sky maps. At its founding it officially confirmed the designation we use for the known planets, and the Moon. But not the Sun. It does however in its various materials use "Sun" as the name for the Sun, including labeling its official symbol for the Sun, and this

    • A moon is a large, spheroid satellite of a planet. Yes, "large" and "spheroid" are vague, deal with it. I'd also argue that a "moon" should be natural in composition, but perhaps not in origin (maybe you tow another planet's moon to your planet).

      The name of our moon is Luna. Luna orbits (the Barycenter between itself and) Terra.
      Alternatively, you can call it "Earth's moon", "our moon", or, in context, "the moon".

      • Phobos and Deimos are neither large nor spheroidal in shape...

        • Phobos and Deimos are neither large nor spheroidal in shape...

          Right. Neither sphericity nor size counts in making something an astronomical moon. Which is why once we got space telescopes and adaptive optics and interplanetary probes talking about "how many moons does it have" for any of the gas giants became a pointless exercise.

        • I already told you:

          Yes, "large" and "spheroid" are vague, deal with it.

          Are you dealing with it?

      • The name of our moon is Luna. Luna orbits (the Barycenter between itself and) Terra.

        Luna is the Latin name for the Moon, but the IAU adopted the English name as its official designation in 1919. They also adopted the Earth for the Earth (but no official name for the Sun, though it uses the Sun in its publications).

        If you we were still using Latin as our scientific language they would of chosen Terra and Luna, but they didn't.

        • Who gives a shit what the IAU says, or worse, what they said before and what they'll say next week?

          Terra, Luna, and Sol. Suck it.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Don't astronomers usually refer to them as satellites? I always thought "moon" was the name of the Earth's satellite

      Yes, but "satellitesatellites" is even uglier than moonmoons.

      By the way, you are all a bunch of Space Cows: Space Cows say moooonmoon. Say moooon you mooning mooers!

    • ...that's no moon?

  • Surely these should be meta moons?

  • One moon (Score:2, Informative)

    by Aethedor ( 973725 )
    There is only one Moon, the satellite circling around the planet Earth. All other astronomical object we refer to as moons are satellites. And no, the electronical satellites we bring into orbit are actually called 'artifical satellites'. So, moomoons makes no sense at all.
  • Babies can later have their own babies and they could be called BabyBabies.

  • They say "Pie Arrrrrr Squared!" whenever they see a moon moon, because that's the custom.

    Orbit like a Pirate Day.

  • More like (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It should be mormoons. They're the ones that have multiple satelwifes

  • I swear one of my stoned physicist friends said something similar about a second order lunar body.

  • dammit

  • Astronomers missed a great opportunity... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MAXOMENOS ( 9802 ) <mike&mikesmithfororegon,com> on Thursday October 11, 2018 @06:32PM (#57464124) Homepage

    ...because most of them don't know enough Latin.

    Instead of Moonmoon, they could call them luna lunae, which means, "moon of moon."

    This could give them endless opportunities for singing a rock classic.

    Luna lunae
    Whoa baby
    Sayin, me gotta go
    Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah....

  • The question itself reminds me of the first two lines of Augustus De Morgan's poem Siphonaptera:

    Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
    And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so, ad infinitum.
    And the great fleas, themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on;
    While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.

    (All four lines quoted here, because, of course they are ... )

  • That satellites orbiting satellites orbiting satellites be called "moonmoonmoons"?

  • We already have a generic name for a thing that orbits another thing and it's 'satellite'.

    We've had the terms 'moon' and 'sun' and 'stars' and 'planets' long before we understood orbital mechanics, and it's useful to have distinct names for things we refer to often.

    But would 'moonmoon' actually convey any useful information, would it make understanding what another person is saying clearer?
    Sounds to me like an attempt to add unnecessary complexity that won't be useful for actual professional discussion and

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xenx ( 2211586 )
      Except, the average layperson refers to natural satellites as moons. The moons of . I'm not saying moonmoon is the right answer, but there will be a lay term for the moon of a moon.

  • I'm thinking the moon of a moon... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @07:06PM (#57464316) Journal

    ...Is called "a moon". Think about it -- let's say you're living on an earth-sized rocky moon orbiting a super-Jupiter, and the moon on which you live has a moon. So you think you and your girl are sitting on the bleeflap of your gringleblop looking up at that shiny object in the sky and you're going to say, oh, look at the moonmoon? No, you're going to say, oh, look at the moon. It reflects wonderfully in your infuscate faceted seeing-patches. Only astro-geeks and pedants will insist on "moonmoon". And they don't get dates, so it's a mootmoot point.

  • The Elephantelephant in the Roomroom. (Score:3)

    by Pezbian ( 1641885 ) on Thursday October 11, 2018 @07:12PM (#57464352)

    I guarantee Moony McMoonface will come up at some point. Probably already has.

  • The prefix "sub-" can do a lot of work here: We can islands within islands "subislands,"

    We can? I'm glad.

    Why do so many people have a blind spot when it comes to verbs? "I accidentally the whole planet".

    • "Can" is perfectly valid as a verb. In the used context, the sentence would read: "We store islands within islands, 'subislands'." Of course, that's missing a comma. A far more likely case isn't using "can" as a verb, and nor is it an omitted verb, but instead a typo of the word "call". Given "call"'s typographic similarity to "can", the mistake be missed in editing.

  • Moon Moons are huskies (the dogs). Not moons.

  • Bloomberg is reporting that Pluto is a planet made in China.
  • This was settled a long time ago. Everyone knows it's a Space Station.
  • Yo dawg, I heard you liked moons, so I got you a moon for your moon so you can swoon over your moon's moon!

  • I can't be the only person to consider prime notation like in calculus for derivatives, eg moon, moon', moon'', etc.

  • ...when he created the character of Major Major Major Major [wikipedia.org]

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Gravitational anomalies slightly distorting the orbits of some Lunar Orbiters led to the discovery of mass concentrations (dubbed mascons) beneath the lunar surface caused by large impacting bodies at some remote time in the past. These anomalies are significant enough to cause a lunar orbit to change significantly over the course of several days.

  • Let us call it a "snark". After all, scientists tend to come up with whimsical names when they run out of rational alternatives. For example: after coining "proton", "neutron" and "electron", physicists moved on to "quark" as an obscure reference to a James Joyce novel [sciencefriday.com], followed by the "up", "down", "strange", "charm", "bottom" and "top" monikers, which are even more nonsense.

    "Snark" has a similar whimsical literary pedigree. It was the titular character in a Lewis Carroll poem [wikipedia.org] - a creature that was h

  • Really does make my day richer, knowing that I can run around the city yelling "I have moonmoons!" and have it actually mean something.

  • Can now have hemorrhoids?

  • As in "the cow jumped over the moon"

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