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Originally Posted by Fram
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Originally Posted by Doodler
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Originally Posted by Fram
I guess that apart from a stable orbit aruond a planet, it also has to 'fly' on its own, not in a larger group in approximately the same orbit. Thus you exclude rings. As for minimum size, that's harder to decide...
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Interesting, as I understand it a few of Saturn's and Jupiter's moons are co-orbital.
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/janus.htm
Take Janus and Epimethius for example. |
That's what I feared... Allright, my definition doesn't work! There goes my chance to make it in the science history books: "The generally agreed on definition of what is a moon and what isn't, informally called 'Fram's definition'... ".  |
LOL, this discussion came up related to Cassini over the possibility of finding new shepard moons in the rings. Its probably this mission that will start to put a hard line between what's a moon and what's orbital debris.
I suppose my own personal take on it would be, any object in orbit around a planet which is individually identifiable as separate and distinct from other bodies orbiting a planet.