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MRB_Doom

Scientists Spot Fifth Moon Around Pluto

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FIFTH moon already??? Why didn't I hear so far anything about the second and third moons?

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printz said:

FIFTH moon already??? Why didn't I hear so far anything about the second and third moons?

Did you know that Jupiter officially has over five dozen moons?

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printz said:

FIFTH moon already??? Why didn't I hear so far anything about the second and third moons?

The village crier doesn't know where you live. That's why.

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It might have just gained the moon from a stray asteroid being caught in its orbit, I wonder if there is ways to know how long a planet has had a moon for.

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Avoozl said:

I wonder if there is ways to know how long a planet has had a moon for.

Absolutely there is. But with such a distant object like pluto, it's a lot more difficult to really say since the size and trajectory of the orbit of this moon isn't really known yet.

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doom2day said:

Did you know that Jupiter officially has over five dozen moons?


Heh. I'm still stuck at the level of the 50s encyclopaedias I had as a kid, and thus Jupiter for me has only 12 moons, and Saturn only has 9. Pluto only has one, Charon, and it's a PLANET, dammit.

BTW, I didn't know anything about Eris and its moon, Dysnomia. Now, with such badass names (Eris = strife, Dysnomia = lawlessness, or "bad law"), I DEMAND that someone makes a Doom episode based on them :-D

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eris will forever be xena for me, it was really sad when astronomers pussied out of that idea. i guess we have to be content with that lawless pun.

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I wonder if that Russian news site even has any science writers. The article seems to just quote Twitter and the BBC. That, and new people have got to quit with the "scientists found..." stuff. Just say it was astronomers. People know what those are, and if they don't then they should!

As for Eris/Xena, I remember being disappointed initially, but I stopped caring pretty quickly. I also don't see why people are attached to Pluto as a planet. If you keep it as one then you have to add a bunch of others and that just makes school even harder for stupid people.

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As the definition of planet was recently refined, I sorta feel the definition of moon might ought to be as well, at least before we start saying Juptiter and Saturn have hundreds or thousands of moons. To me, a 5-foot chunk of rock is no moon.

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Maes said:

Pluto only has one, Charon, and it's a PLANET, dammit.


Technically it is still considered a planet, just a dwarf planet. We have several of them in our system I believe. At least Ceres which is between Mars and Jupiter.

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PRIMEVAL said:

At least Ceres which is between Mars and Jupiter.

I didn't know about that either!

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printz said:

I didn't know about that [Ceres] either!


Heh that was actually mentioned in my aforementioned 50s encyclopaedia, along with the planetoid/wandering rocks belt between Mars and Jupiter.

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So Pluto has an 5th moon? That's some interesting news! I wonder what they'll name it, and I wonder why P4 isn't named yet?

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NitroactiveStudios said:

I wonder what they'll name it, and I wonder why P4 isn't named yet?

They'd best keep it that way, or tack on some extra numbers for kicks. If we carry on with this trend of giving names to every fling of paltry dust that's spotted past the kuiper belt then we'll have to start recruiting Welsh historians to do the naming for us. Go crazy with the l's. Call it Lllndewynn V or something. Maybe Oortaloo?

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