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Saturn's New Moons Named
sebFlyte writes "The BBC is reporting that three new moons found orbiting Saturn at the end of last year have been named. 'Two moons detected in August have been given the names Methone and Pallene, while another found in October has been provisionally named Polydeuces.' Polydeuces is also reported as being a very strange object-- a trojan moon. It sits in a spot near a larger moon where the gravitational pull of the other moon (Dione here) and the planet cancel each other out."
Polydeuce bigalow.
Planet Gigolo
That's no Trojan moon...
I hadn't ever really thought about Lagrange points before I read that article. They are both interesting and intuitive to me. That there is a spot between two gravitational bodies that creates a "dead" spot, around which an object can orbit in a tug of war. Neat stuff. I find that more interesting than what names they have chosen for the moons.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
Yikes better update my anti-virus. Don't want to get infected by W32.Polydeuces.A@mm now.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
....Methone and Pallene, Polydeuce? Where's the cowboy neil option?
There is no replacement for displacement.
How can that possibly be stable? Wouldn't the slightest deviation lead to the moon coming crashing down in either direction?
Yes, the next moon will be named Hitler!
No that's not a death star! It's just Hitler!
Because we're more than likely to get into pissing contests over who or what to name the planets after. I certainly wouldn't like to have to visit Planet Nixon or the moon Roosevelt.
why does the porridge bird lay his eggs in the air?
Yes, and the first planet that has signs of intelligent life, shall be now known as Planet Bush!
Naming them Ronald and Reagan?
I believe the way the Lagrange points work (from what I read) is that the object "in it" orbits the lagrange point by being tugged back and forth... it's not just "sitting there at some fixed distance relative to the 2 bodies.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
The point between to celestial bodies (usually a planet and it's moon) where the gravity of one is equal to the gravity of the other is called the Lagrange point.
Usually closer to the smaller of the two bodies, this point is a common location of sci-fi space stations, as there is no need to use an orbit to keep the station from decaying back into the larger bodies atmosphere.
There are no gods but ourselves.
I hear Rush Limbaugh will be broadcasting from there for a while.
I was a bit surprised about the name Polydeuces, because he (the mythological character) had little to do with Troy. However, it turns out that there's another Trojan moon called Helene (now this makes sense!), and Polydeucues is Helene's brother.
Because 'planet' is a greek name meaning 'wanderer.' Thte planets were thought to be the gods. Therefor, they named them with those names. Western civilization is largely inherited from the Greeks and the Romans. We kept the names. Besides, why the hell would we call Jupiter Lugh or Woden? It'd be weird.
When asked why they had named the moon now after millenia of observation, one student from Saturn's top university said, "Why not, you know? I mean, like, we had named everything else of importance, dude. Even the unimportant places. So like this was all that was left."
No comment could be received from inhabitants of !3kd8dgh, since they don't speak Standard Galactic. Moreover, they laughably think they are the only inhabitanted planet in the system, and it's considered taboo to disabuse them of this ignorance.
Oh Saturn, I love your rings. They make you look so beautiful. I just love being around them for all this time.
...TROJAN MOON.
Oh moon, the way you circle around me makes my weather patterns get all disrupted. You are just the perfect little moon, I love you.
Oh Saturn, I think its time for some gravitational pull...
This post has been filtered for sanity.
In celestial mechanics, Lagrange points come up in the three-body problem, where you have two large bodies (eg Sun and planet, planet and large moon) and one small object (a Trojan asteroid, spacecraft, new Saturn moon).
Lagrange points are the five places relative to the two large objects, where the third object will be held at the same position - relative to those two objects - in its orbit. In other words, there will be a net force on the third object that will result in it accelerating around the largest object at the same rate as the second largest object.*
A Lagrange point is stable if an object near by the L point will tend to be pulled towards or orbit around that point if it's a bit off the exact point. The L point is unstable if the object tends to be pulled further away from it once it wanders a little away.
The L1 point (in between the two large bodies), L4 and L5 points (60 deg ahead and behind the orbiting large body) are stable, the L2 and L3 points are unstable. Many of our solar observing spacecraft get sent to orbit the L1 point.
*(Center of mass discussion left out for relative simplicity)
We can see lightyears and lightyears away with Hubble, and other large telescopes. So how is it were still finding moons in the solar system?
Planet Starbuck? It's better than the
System Microsoft. Where the Sun BSOD's once a year.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Apparently not many people paid attention to this in high school.
The title of this article should be: Saturn's New Satellites Named.
Unique.
Who decides on the names of these moons?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(disambiguation) :
The term Moon refers, among other things, to:
1. The Earth's only natural satellite, the Moon.
2. A common term for other natural satellites.
As far as I can see from the article and from the IAU website, the International Astronomical Union hasn't approved these names. By common agreement in the astronomical community, they have the final word on approving names. So until they meet and approve this, all that is being reported is that the Cassini team is *suggesting* names for the moons *to* the IAU. The IAU has the right to shoot down their suggestins. (I'm a bit skeptical of Polydeuces being accepted since it doesn't fit the usual scheme. But what do I know?)
For some reason these names are starting to remind me of the names of worlds in Populous.
Scoqazpert
Methone
Bileapert
Pallene
Not that different, really.