Favorite Moon in our Solar System?

If you need a refresher course on the various heavenly bodies inhabiting our system.. stop by here: http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/nineplanets.html

Io is a close second.

Martin

Those are my first and second too.

Go to a newsstand. Look for the special issue of Scientific American entitled "New Light on the Planets." It will be out until Dec 22, I believe.

BUY IT!

It is NOT the same old same old. It has revolutionized my understanding of the solar system. Europa has it's own chapter. There's some wonderful material on the rings, Gannymeade, Callisto, and Io. And why global warming failed on Mars (size), worked to well on Venus (raised the temperature 800 degrees) and was needed billions of years ago on earth so life could develop. And how we know most asteroids are not rocks, but loose collections of dust and ice. And how the movement of nearby stars disturbed the Oort cloud and the effect on earth. And what metal the core of Jupiter is made of (metallic hydrogen). And what force keeps the subterranean oceans of Europa from freezing (tidal kneading caused by harmonized orbits). And...and...you get the idea.

:D :thumbsup:

why any other? :)
Sting

Or is that Vulcan? which is the one that scientists think is an ocean covered with ice? Are they Jupiters' moons?

Oh, well. I'm partial to Luna, myself. She's just so beautiful!

:cry:

Europa is frozen.

Anyone want to write a poem using that as the first line?

Calls up images of his Jovian colony stories...

If they exist, they are buried under a huge shell of solid ice.

Io's sulfur volcanoes are quite real, though. And extremely active. :D

--Peter

Looks like a giant glowing pizza

Could have some life on it. Well, big enough to be a planet anyway.

:toast:

A satellite of Saturn, it is the largest moon in the Solar System (actually larger than the planet Mercury).

for how accurate that site is. :P

It was the first one on the list. :evilgrin:

I just wanted a nice reference site for people to look at JIC they didn't have a favorite. Plus I had to make sure! :o :P

n/t

n/t

Frozen ice on top, chewy liquid water center-- best chance for life in the solar system outside earth.

(of course, we still really haven't explored it, thx NASA)

Reverend...

Uh, I go with our moon since it's made of cheese. :9

It rises daily.

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Though Triton is pretty interesting, its orbit is decaying and someday it will be gone :(

Unless we launch a massive effort to spin it the other way in the next few thousand years, that is!

But I like Europa the best out of all the moons because it has a nice, smooth, icy surface.

Io is cool too... and there's one moon of Uranus that reflects almost all of the light that hits it on one side, and is dark on the other, that's nifty!

Though Triton is pretty interesting, its orbit is decaying and someday it will be gone :(

Unless we launch a massive effort to spin it the other way in the next few thousand years, that is!

I think you're correct that Triton's orbit is decaying, but I do think it will be a lot longer than a few thousand years before it is gone. Solar system time scales are immense and are probably more like hundreds of millions of years, I think.

--Peter

How many decaying orbits do we want to be bogged down fixing?

The frozen underground oceans. But Io, Callisto, and Gannymeade are right up there. Especially fascinating because they are so different in composition, vulcanism, magnetic fields, chemical composition, etc.

At least for today.

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/triton.html

The most interesting (and totally unexpected) features of this unusually interesting world are the ice volcanoes. The eruptive material is probably liquid nitrogen, dust, or methane compounds from beneath the surface. One of Voyager's images shows an actual plume rising 8 km above the surface and extending 140 km "downwind" (left).

Triton, Io and Venus are the only bodies in the solar system besides Earth that are known to be volcanically active at the present time (though Mars clearly was in the past). It's also interesting to note that very different volcanic processes occur in the outer solar system. Earth's and Venus' (and Mars') eruptions are of rocky material and are driven by internal heat. Io's eruptions are probably sulfur or sulfur compounds driven by tidal interactions with Jupiter. Triton's eruptions are of very volatile compounds like nitrogen or methane driven by seasonal heating from the Sun.

Gotta love those ice volcanoes! :D

--Peter

Although Nereid has its charms, too.

:hi:

Oort oort! Oort! Oort oort oort!

::dives into water::

When the system is closest to the sun during its orbit, Charon and Pluto share an atmosphere.

It is the only moon large enough to make the center of gravity in the system outside the planet.

Some may argue that the Pluto-Charon system is a double planet, but if that is the case, so is the Earth-Moon system.

And I like Titan because I like to think that several million years from now when our sun expands to a red giant that is where life will evolve.

Because I think the name is cool.

Discovered by Galileo, I believe.

nt

It looks like an olive, and was once suspected to be...*gasp*...HOLLOW!

Tucker

La Luna es muy bonita.

:yourock:
:loveya:

I couldn't choose between Deimos or Phobos, so I picked Charon.

...with the Leather Goddesses!

(Just seeing how many people remember 80s-era computer games...)

Leave it to Tucker to pick Phobos. :evilgrin:

But poor Deimos never gets any attention. At least Phobos got a Russian space probe named after it a while back.

;-)

--Peter

...mysteriously stopped sending pictures as it approached Phobos. Almost as if someone inside didn't want their picture taken... *cue Twilight Zone music*

Tucker

sorry couldn't resist.

Cheers
Drifter

I love ice, and Europa has much. Also the best chance of possibly finding life, deeep in the oceans that hopefully are actually there.

read a great book a few years ago, "Cold as Ice", that takes place partly on Europa, and deals with finding new life (though finding new life isn't the main storyline, it's part of the driver of the plot). Great characters in this book; I've always wanted Batacharya to come back in another book.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812511638/qid=1068755392/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-8428316-2679349?v=glance&s=books

Because she goes backwards (retrograde) in relation to the other moons. I even named my car (a Saturn, of course) after this moon. So far my car doesn't go backwards without my directing her...:crazy:

:pout:

:D

But that song jumped in my head the minute I saw this thread.

http://near.jhuapl.edu/

I watched the NEAR Shoemaker every day until the end.

Another loss. :cry:

one of Saturn's moons...

These moons have ice and may be the only other places in the solar system where life exists.

(Don't both moons have ice?)

I sense a terrible disturbance in the force!

short and to the point...

Remember the movie? The aliens told us we had the whole system but never to visit europa