User:Drbogdan/sandbox-Moonmoon

ALSO SEE => SUBPAGES

The original earlier "Moonmoon" article (see copy below) has since been redirected to the "Subsatellite" article. Drbogdan (talk) 20:17, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

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A Moonmoon (also known as a moon moon, moon-moon, moonito, moonette, moooon or submoon) is a natural satellite that orbits a moon or an exomoon.

It is inferred from the empirical study of natural satellites in the Solar System that moonmoons may be elements of planetary systems. The majority of detected exoplanets are giant planets, and some, like Kepler-1625b, has been shown to contain a large exomoon, named Kepler-1625b I. In the Solar System, the giant planets have large collections of natural satellites (see Moons of Jupiter, Moons of Saturn, Moons of Uranus and Moons of Neptune). Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that moonmoons may exist in the Solar System, and in planetary systems beyond the Solar System.

Nonethess, no "moons of moons" or subsatellites (natural satellites that orbit a natural satellite of a planet) are currently known in the Solar System, or beyond the Solar System. In most cases, the tidal effects of the planet would make such a system unstable.

However, calculations performed after the recent detection of a possible ring system around Saturn's moon Rhea indicate that satellites orbiting Rhea could have stable orbits. Furthermore, the suspected rings are thought to be narrow, a phenomenon normally associated with shepherd moons. However, targeted images taken by the Cassini spacecraft failed to detect rings around Rhea. It has also been proposed that Saturn's moon Iapetus had a satellite in the past; this is one of several hypotheses that have been put forward to account for its equatorial ridge.