A natural satellite, or moon, is a celestial body that orbits another body (a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body), which is called its primary, and that is not artificial.
Moons missing .
- Thread starter tyros
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A natural satellite, or moon, is a celestial body that orbits another body (a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body), which is called its primary, and that is not artificial.
A planet is a moon when it orbits another planet. That doesn't stop it being a planet; it's just also a moon at the same time.
Well, im near Eta Carina nebula right now, on my way there i have scanned everything, and im slowly starting to feel, that those moons, which you cant find, are my biggest enemy.
But hey, my next target in Sag A, and i will (probably) scan everything................maybe im just starting to get a bit crazy..................there are no moons at all.
But hey, my next target in Sag A, and i will (probably) scan everything................maybe im just starting to get a bit crazy..................there are no moons at all.
Icy/Rocky planets orbiting a larger planet - those icy/rocky planets (with one example of gas giants) are ALL MOONS by atronomical definition. It doesn't matter that the game refers to them as planets, Elite appears to use that designation to refer to any astronomical body that is neither a star nor an asteroid field or a black hole/pulsar/neutron star. It really couldn't be much clearer.
Next time you play, go to the galaxy map and type in Sol. Then look at the system map and find the Moon (the one that orbits Earth). You will see it's described as just a "rocky planet" that we just named the Moon.
When I started reading this it seemed like a matter of misunderstanding the word moon. I looked at the images posted on page 1 and agreed that each of the planets with assosciated satellites had moons. So I thought I would look into it a bit by consulting the outfit responsible for doing the naming - the International Astronomical Union
http://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/
I noted the failure to use the word moon for anything but Earth's satellite. Job done thought I until I looked at this
http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Planets
Note the the description to the title 'Martian System' is "The names of the moons of Mars and the English translations of the names were specifically proposed by their discoverer, .... "
So whilst the IAU does not specify what the term moon (small M) means, it uses it to describe satellites of Mars.
http://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/
I noted the failure to use the word moon for anything but Earth's satellite. Job done thought I until I looked at this
http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Planets
Note the the description to the title 'Martian System' is "The names of the moons of Mars and the English translations of the names were specifically proposed by their discoverer, .... "
So whilst the IAU does not specify what the term moon (small M) means, it uses it to describe satellites of Mars.
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