%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
Items to fit into your overhead compartment |
| Today, we'll talk about some moons that aren't The Moon, for once. This article, from PopSci, concerns something you may or may not have heard about last month: Which planet has the most moons? Saturn dethrones Jupiter.  The International Astronomical Union recognized 128 newly discovered moons orbiting the ringed planet. Just to be clear, I'm not questioning the finding. What I am going to question is the definition of "moon." The ringed gas giant Saturn has officially replaced Jupiter as the planet in our solar system with the most moons. The International Astronomical Union officially recognized 128 new moons orbiting Saturn, bringing the new total up to 274 moons. And that's certainly a lot of moons. The moons were discovered by a group of astronomers from Taiwan, Canada, the United States, and France. Between 2019 and 2021, they used the Canada France Hawaii Telescope to repeatedly monitor the sky around Saturn. While one could wish for a more creative name, at least "Canada France Hawaii Telescope" is descriptive. As of February 2024, Jupiter has 95 moons. By comparison, Mercury, and Venus are moonless, Earth has one moon, and Mars has two. Uranus and Neptune have 28 and 16 known moons, respectively. Despite not technically being a planet anymore, Pluto has five moons. And here's where I'm going to get picky. No, not about Pluto's designation. I honestly don't care what they call it. I understand why it got demoted, and can't fault the logic. But the point is there was a method to it. They decided what should constitute a planet, and Pluto didn't make the cut with the new definition. Also, if you want to get really technical about it, Pluto's largest satellite, Charon, is more like a companion world; they orbit a point between the two of them. Thing is, okay, so we have this definition of "planet" that excludes Pluto, Charon, Ceres, Vesta, Eris, etc. It's not solely about size, but the size of the world is a factor. So we get to "moon." The 128 new Saturnian satellites are all considered irregular moons. These are objects that orbit their host planet on an elliptical, inclined, or backwards path. Which, again, is fine, but at some point, don't you have to call them something else? The two moons of Mars are small and irregular, with odd orbits, and are probably captured asteroids. Some of the moons in the outer solar system are bigger than Mercury. There's a continuum in between. There's also a continuum of bodies orbiting a planet ranging from small-planet-sized all the way down to very small rocks, pebbles, grains of sand, even dust. And that's where my issue comes in. Saturn's rings have been known for a while now to be made up of really small chunks of mostly ice, though there are some larger bodies in there. Every one of those specks could be considered a moon, giving Saturn not 146, not 274, but probably millions of "moons." The Wikipedia bit on moon, or "natural satellite," states: 'There is no established lower limit on what is considered a "moon".' While this could probably be worded better, it shows what I mean: there's no minimum size. Consequently, Saturn has, since early telescopic observation, always been known to have more moons than Jupiter does (the latter also has a ring system, but nothing like Saturn's distinctive feature).One could argue, I suppose, that it's impossible for telescopes on or near Earth to resolve each speck of dust in Saturn's rings individually, so they shouldn't be called moons. But if so, come on, IAU: get together and agree on a definition like you did with "planet." We could use something new to argue about, because the Pluto thing is getting really stale. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
