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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 ...
Planets around other stars are likely to have satellites as well, and although numerous candidates have been detected to date, none have yet been confirmed. Of the inner planets, Mercury and Venus have no natural satellites; Earth has one large natural satellite, known as the Moon; and Mars has two tiny natural satellites, Phobos and Deimos.
Theia or Orpheus, [21] a Mars-sized impactor believed to have collided with the Earth roughly 4.5 billion years ago; an event which created the Moon. Evidence from 2019 suggests that it may have originated in the outer Solar System. [22] Vulcan, a hypothetical planet once believed to exist inside the orbit of Mercury. Initially proposed as the ...
The phrase refers to an orbiting body (a planet or protoplanet) "sweeping out" its orbital region over time, by gravitationally interacting with smaller bodies nearby. Over many orbital cycles, a large body will tend to cause small bodies either to accrete with it, or to be disturbed to another orbit, or to be captured either as a satellite or into a resonant orbit.
By 2016, orbital calculations showed that all five of Earth's then known quasi-satellites repeatedly transfer between horseshoe and quasi-satellite orbits. [8] 3753 Cruithne, [9] 2002 AA 29, [1] 2003 YN 107 and 2015 SO 2 [5] are minor planets in horseshoe orbits that might evolve into a quasi-satellite orbit. The time spent in the quasi ...
Orbital decay is a gradual decrease of the distance between two orbiting bodies at their closest approach (the periapsis) over many orbital periods.These orbiting bodies can be a planet and its satellite, a star and any object orbiting it, or components of any binary system.
Belhaven Bridge. Scotland This apparent bridge-to-nowhere is certainly mystifying at first glance, but there's actually a perfectly natural explanation for why it looks this way: the tide.
[5] Since most of the planet's water has escaped to space, Venus does not experience rain like Earth does. However, there has been evidence of lightning on Venus as confirmed by data from Venus Express. The lightning on Venus is different than the lightning on all other planets as it is associated with sulfuric acid clouds instead of water clouds.