I thought I heard this somewhere, and I wanted to find out if its true before I go spreading urban legends:

That the moon is the only satellite in the solar system that is more strongly attracted to the sun than to its parent planet, and furthermore, that it is the only satellite that doesn't move retrograde from the sun's point of view.

I may have read this in Asimov on Astronomy, but I can't find the book.

It's pretty easy to verify that these are true of the moon, but is it really the only satellite with these properties? (I suppose the trojan asteroids of Jupiter are not considered satellites?)

Well, Charon would be questionable as far as the attraction question. But then again it's somewhat questionable whether Charon is Pluto's satellite in the common sense.

Most larger satellites of the planets are tidally locked,so I would say that the moon isn't an oddity in that sense; and as a satellite of the sun - Venus has retrograde rotation.

I don't see how this would be true. For instance, Ganymede alone has an orbital velocity of 2 km/sec slower than the orbital velocity of Jupiter. Of course, most (probably all) the other "moons" of Jupiter further out will also not retrograde relative to the sun.

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"The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the universe to do..." Author: Galileo supposedly.

Apparently, this is quite true. I just did some rough calculations with pencil and paper and it turns out that the Sun attracts the Moon more than twice as much as the Earth does. I didn't check all the other moons in the Solar System (there are more than 100 of them!), but I did check Deimos (Mars's more distant satellite) and Charon, and both are more strongly attracted to their parent planet than to the Sun.

As for the other part of your query, all I can say is that the rotation of the Moon about its axis and its revolution about the Earth are both quite typical for a natural satellite. The Moon revolves about the Earth in a counterclockwise direction as seen from above the Earth's North Pole. Most - but not all - moons orbit their planets like this. Also, the Moon rotates on its axis in a counterclockwise direction as seen from above the Moon's North Pole. Once again, this is the norm rather than the exception.

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George is quite right. While it is true that the Moon never moves retrograde with respect to the Sun (because its orbital velocity around the Earth is less than the Earth's orbital velocity around the Sun), this is also true for Ganymede (and for several other satellites as well).

For the record:

Earth's orbital velocity ~ 30 km/s
Moon's Orbital velocity ~ 1 km/s

Ganymede's orbital velocity ~ 11 km/s
Jupiter's orbital velocity ~ 13 km/s

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This is true only if you don't count irregular satellites. At average distances from the respective planets, the statement is also true for 8 satellites of Jupiter, 1 of Uranus, and 2 of Neptune. But limited to major satellites, none come close.

Thanks, bobjohnston. I stand corrected (again!).

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