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A subsatellite, also known as a submoon or informally a moonmoon, is a "moon of a moon" or a hypothetical natural satellite that orbits the moon of a planet. [3] It is inferred from the empirical study of natural satellites in the Solar System that subsatellites may be rare, albeit possible, elements of planetary systems. In the Solar System ...
In astronomy, planetary transits and occultations occur when a planet passes in front of another object, as seen by an observer.The occulted object may be a distant star, but in rare cases it may be another planet, in which case the event is called a mutual planetary occultation or mutual planetary transit, depending on the relative apparent diameters of the objects.
Irregular moons are probably minor planets that have been captured from surrounding space. Most irregular moons are less than 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) in diameter. The earliest published discovery of a moon other than Earth's was by Galileo Galilei, who discovered the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610. Over the following three ...
Neptune's moon Proteus is the largest irregularly shaped natural satellite; the shapes of Eris' moon Dysnomia and Orcus' moon Vanth are unknown. All other known natural satellites that are at least the size of Uranus's Miranda have lapsed into rounded ellipsoids under hydrostatic equilibrium , i.e. are "round/rounded satellites" and are ...
Beyond that, tidal heating might play a role for a moon's habitability. In 2012, scientists introduced a concept to define the habitable orbits of moons; [50] they define an inner border of an habitable moon around a certain planet and call it the circumplanetary "habitable edge". Moons closer to their planet than the habitable edge are ...
Weywot (formal designation (50000) Quaoar I; provisional designation S/2006 (50000) 1) is a natural satellite or moon of the trans-Neptunian dwarf planet Quaoar.It was discovered by Michael Brown and Terry-Ann Suer using images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on 14 February 2006.
On April 28, 1905, [1] [2] William H. Pickering, who had discovered the Saturnian moon Phoebe seven years earlier, announced the discovery of a tenth Saturnian satellite, which he promptly named Themis after the Greek goddess of divine law and order. The thirteen photographic plates on which it supposedly appeared spanned a period between April ...
A team led by Scott S. Sheppard using the Subaru Telescope at Mauna Kea discovered 20 new moons, each about 5 kilometres (3.1 miles) in diameter. 17 of these are thought to fit into the Norse group. One of these is the most distant moon of Saturn. A public naming contest for these moons was announced, restricted to names from Norse mythology. [1]