Dream Pondering

Dec 05, 2009 10:04

I often wake up with random questions like this one stuck in my head.

Could a moon have a moon?

-j-

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evil_egg December 5 2009, 16:25:06 UTC
I understand there are some asteroids in the Belt between Mars and Jupiter with their own satellites, which seems to lend a certain support to your theory.

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_faroth_ December 5 2009, 18:02:15 UTC
Agreed, unfortunately once you put something like that next to a planet, then the planet's gravitational forces take over. Still I doubt it is impossible, i just don't think a set up like that would last for long. Heck at one point in time our moon was a bunch of fractured parts so it isn't inconceivable that it had small masses orbiting it.

The romantic idea of having something the size of our Moon that orbits earth with its own smaller moon (big enough to be seen in the sky on at least the Moon, maybe not from Earth,) orbiting it is probably unlikely.

-j-

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