A moon, also known as a natural satellite, is a an object in space that orbits a planet or a minor planet. There are 175 moons in our solar system.
A moon is an astronomical object that orbits a planet or a minor planet. Moons are more accurately known as natural satellites to avoid confusion with the name of our own moon. There are 175 known moons in our solar system. The first moons discovered that didn’t orbit our planet were by Galileo Galilei. In 1610, Galileo was observing Jupiter when he noticed that there were four objects moving around it. Until this point, most people assumed the Earth-centric model of our solar system was correct. Galileo’s observations of the natural satellites of Jupiter showed that not every object in the solar system orbited the Sun, as previously thought.
The term "satellite" came from the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in his paper on the moons of Jupiter. The term came from the Latin satelle which means "guard" or "companion". Natural satellites are smaller than the planet they orbit. They are held in orbit by a gravitational force. Most moons are tidally locked to their planet. This means that one side of the moon always faces the planet.
There are different ways that moons are formed. Moons that have a regular, prograde orbits are generally created from the same protoplanetary disk as the planet. Satellites that have an irregular orbits, orbits which are eccentric or retrograde are normally space objects which have been captured by the gravitational of the planet.
The only moon that humans have ever visited is our own. The first human to walk on the moon was American astronaut Neil Armstrong. As well as sending spacecraft to our moon, orbiters have also been sent to study the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Huygens was a lander mission launch in 2005 which successfully landed on Saturn’s moon, Titan.
{Microdata type="HowTo" id="10016"}A moon, also known as a natural satellite, is a celestial body that orbits a planet or dwarf planet. Moons can vary greatly in size and composition, and most planets in our solar system have at least one moon.
Moons orbit planets, while planets orbit stars like our Sun. Unlike planets, moons are not considered primary objects in a planetary system and usually have less mass and no atmosphere.
Planets have moons because of gravitational forces that capture or form these natural satellites. Moons can form from debris left over after a planet's formation or be captured from passing objects in space.
Earth has one natural moon, commonly called the Moon. It is the fifth largest moon in our solar system and is the only moon where humans have landed.
Moons orbit planets, but it's extremely rare for a moon to have its own moon, called a submoon. So far, astronomers have not confirmed any submoons in our solar system.