During a short break at school I walked outside, looked up at our moon and started thinking, would it be possible for our moon, or any moon for that matter, to have (natural) satallites of their own? Course that might look a little strange but is it possible?

Also, on a bit of a side note, I would think that our moon would have at least one (artificial) satallite that we could use to probe the Moon's surface easier. Why is this? Are the satallites in Earth orbit more than sufficient for this task? Thanks.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Quasi on 2002-12-19 12:11 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Quasi on 2002-12-19 12:12 ]</font>

I think there actually is a satellite or satellites in orbit of the Moon, to map it. I can't remember the names off the top of my head, but I'm pretty sure they're there.

By a weird synchronicity, I brought that up just this morning in another thread, which asks for things that we should be able to see, but don't.

If you want to get technical, the planets are satellites of the sun, therefore the moons of our solar system are satellites of satellites. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Lunar Prospector was crashed into the moon at the end of it's mission.

Clementine left lunar orbit.

If someone without a doubt say yes then i would jump up and finaly be able to say "say, up yours pluto i always knew you wernt a planet u deceitful little body!"

Say yes to what?

I've read that the mass distribution on the moon is a bit wierd; any satellite in a low lunar orbit is in a relatively short going to be perturbed enough to crash into the moon. Higher orbits aren't stable either, but that's due more to the earth's influence.

Can moons have moons. Bout the only thing to me that makes pluto a planet is chiron. Hence if moons can have moons pluto = non-planet.(asteroid? binary moon system?)

What is your criteria for planethood?

Don't some of the "shepherding" moon's in saturn's rings sorta orbit each other? Anybody know?

I can't believe you guys are bringing this up. I just wrote an article a week ago touching on this very topic... and John K. you are putting your finger right on it.

I was debating whether to run it by you guys first... So, have at it; I've reproduced it here: http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...=3275&forum=2&

G^2

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Gsquare on 2002-12-20 00:41 ]</font>