There is no doubt how much our Moon, a natural satellite orbiting around earth, attracts everyone on the planet. Someone might have wished for another moon for the Earth, and maybe that’s the reason China's artificial moon news went viral a few days back. Our solar system has more than 200 moons! Each moon has its own story of formation, characteristics, specifications and also has a unique effect on it’s parental body. Earth’s moon is the best example of this, the Moon controls Earth’s atmosphere and oceanic phenomena.
Except Mercury and Venus, all other planets, dwarf planets and some asteroids also accompanied by one or more moons. The moons of Mercury and Venus might have formed in the early solar system, but today they do not exist. The Earth has only one, whereas Mars has two moons -Phobos and Deimos. Jupiter has in total 79, including 53 confirmed and 26 provisional moons. Saturn has 53 confirmed and 29 provisional, in total 82 moons. Provisional moons are the ones not named yet but given temporary identification names. Uranus has 27, and Neptune has 14 confirmed moons. Out of 5 dwarf planets in our solar system, only Ceres has no moon. Generally, moons are named by mythological characters, whereas, some moons got their names from William Shakerspeare’s plays, or also from Alexander Pope's poetry.
Moons can be of any shape, size or types. They can be; solid bodies like Earth's moon, gases or even having oceans, like Saturn’s two moons -Enceladus and Titan have methane and ethane sea lakes; with or without atmosphere. Moons in the inner solar system are rocky, whereas, the outer solar system has water or ice moons. Moons orbit around the parental body either in circular or elliptical orbit in the direction of it’s spin. Interestingly, Jupiter’s few moons orbit far away and to the opposite of the spin of the planet!
Blog by Pranita Herwade.
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