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They call them "Moonmoons".
Well, according to New Scientist, anyway. Astronomers Sean Raymond and Juna Kollmeier are satisfied with the following proposed terms:
- moonmoons
- submarines
- moonitos
- moonettes
- moooons
"IAU [International Astronomical Union] will have to decide! "said Kollmeier at Quartz.
The two scientists are currently working on an article entitled "Can moons have moons?", Which they sent to arXiv for comments prior to submission. If you have never heard of a moon moon, it's because no one has ever seen it before. But that does not mean, as Kollmeier and Raymond point out in their journal, that a small moon, circling a larger moon, circling a planet, can not exist.
Their analysis suggests that Moonmoons are possible, under the right circumstances – if, for example, the big moon is big enough, the little moon is quite small and both are far enough away from the host planet. Moons that are too close to their planet risk losing their sub-balloons because of the tidal forces of this planet, which will shred it, propel it into space or make it run away, thus risking crushing their moon and planet.
You seem incredibly specific? Not necessarily. All the moons of Saturn Titan and Iapetus, the moon of Jupiter Callisto and the Moon of the Earth could, in theory, have a lunar moon, according to the researchers (although, of course, they are not). And while this may sound fanciful, the two astronomers believe that there are good reasons to deepen this theoretical phenomenon: "We are only scratching the surface with the way we can use the absence of submunitions to understand our recent history, "said Kollmeier. said Gizmodo. They hope that the Moonmoons study could reveal some additional clues about the formation of the planets and their moons.
Since the newspaper was developed, the internet has gone crazy for moonmoons – and that's at least partly because of their wonderful name. Stupid and charming, the "Moonmoons" left Twitter spiraling out of its orbit. If you do not know why, a Daily Dot exploder sheds light on us: Moonmoon is not only an astronomical term possible, but a meme of 2014 on a gloriously dumb dog.
Let's start with the moon-moon-meeting-moon-moon memes – as well as the recalcitrant questions from the shower about whether the moon moon could in turn have their own moon.
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