Author: Sarah Laskow / Source: Atlas Obscura
Two astronomers have asked a question for the ages: Can moons have moons?
The delightful, if theoretical, answer is: Yes—yes, they can.
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, 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.
There’s a serious scientific reason to investigate the presence or absence of moon’s moons: As Kollmeier and Raymond write, it can help give us clues about how planets and their moons were formed. But, all justification aside, there’s something inexplicably pleasing about what Atlas Obscura has taken to calling “recursive places.”
Our favorites of these may be islands within islands, such as the sub-sub-sub-island on Victoria Island,…
The post What Do You Call a Moon’s Moon? appeared first on FeedBox.