Because the far greater gravitational pull of the parent planet would result in the smaller moons being captured from the larger ones.

By the way, did Michelle of the resistance and her cast of idiots (e.g. Rene Artois et al) ever succeed in returning the two British airman home?

OK, so why doesn't the greater gravitational pull of the sun result in the moons being captured by the sun?

As far as the other question goes, I will spook to HQ headquerters using my poloceman's radio and faind oot.

Actually they do, once you have sorted through the definitions:

See dwarf planets

Haumea has two

Makemake has one

Dwarf Planets

the gravitational pull of the body the moon is circling, is greater than the gravitational pull of the orbiting moon, ie: the smaller moon would circle the larger planet not the moon

Our moon has two new moons this week. I tried to watch NASA launch them last week but the cloud cover was too heavy.

So basically it would be like balancing 2 plates with a stick :) got it!

So it is possible for a moons moons moon to have moons!! it is just very extremely almost impossible yet not totally imposible!!

I wonder if I can have moons....

Stand on a street late at night in most western cities and you will get "Mooned" by the young kids in their cars.....

haha. once... but twice would be very unlikely.... 3 times would be even less probable!! hahaha

I think that must just be a generalized approximation, as it doens't appear to take into account the moons gravity, which is 1/6 of earth's.

Chris

I don't know anything about this sort of thing, but, I'd have thought that (as far as the sun/earth gravitational fields is concerned) it was relatively easy to model the earth/moon system as a single body at their barycentre: the things which are going to affect the "gravity wells" at L4 and L5 are going to be the transits of other planets like Venus. If I've understood it correctly the points L4 and L5 are areas of stable equilibrium where L1, 2 and 3 are unstable, but, you can keep space stations there by constantly correcting any deviations. Also because these areas (L1, 2 and 3) have fields which effectively pull at the "top and bottom" but push in from the "sides" artificial satellites can be placed in mini orbits around the exact point.

Everything is moving/orbiting/wobbling. I only meant that the shape of those field lines would change a little.. not that it would destabilize it completely, but then that would be dependent on the mass of the object at L4/L5. I agree that you would need some corrections for larger masses.

Turns out that the way everything pulls on each other, our Solar System is a pretty chaotic place... Objects potentially can go out of orbit at anytime. Some scientists are betting that Mercury will be the first to wander away.

Yes, this is a great graphic.

The Hill sphere that somebody else mentioned (I gave you a GA) is the concentric rings around the Earth in this diagram. The edge of this sphere incorporates the two La Grange points L1 & L2. Inside this sphere the gravity well of the object centered in this sphere dominates that object's motion. But all objects have a Hill sphere so a moon can have a moon. Our moon has one now that was launched by India and will have another soon from NASA. The Trojan moons of Saturn are not moons of moons, but they can happen.

Now if an object was orbiting the Earth just inside her Hill sphere, very little added energy would be required to move it out of the sphere to now be dominated by the Sun's Hill sphere. (The edge of the Sun's Hill sphere I believe is in the Oort cloud.) So a luckily timed and positioned comet could draw such an object out of Earth's influence.

I don't know about the rest of these ass-tronomers, but moons do have moons... Ever since Pluto was downgraded to an icy, escaped moon - and it has a smaller body (Charon) orbiting it, moons now have moons!!!

Boss,you wiped everybodys moons,thanks

Who says Moon doesn't have moon?

Our moon has a moon around it....

It is called "Earth"

I' leaving.

Too much "Mooning" going on here for a well brought up person like myself....

Recently I was walking through the forest and heard a young couple "Mooning" or was it "Moaning"?

I forget, one or the other......anyway its still too much whatever it was!!!

Do Trojans come from trojan moons?

In high school there was a song called "The sound of lovers in Love" or some such thing. I always wondered what that sound was. I think you answered part of it. I used to do something with my tongue that may have been the other part.

There's another question I 'need' to ask: If a man talks in the forest where no woman can hear, is he still wrong?

You asked:-

There's another question I 'need' to ask: If a man talks in the forest where no woman can hear, is he still wrong?

If you are married, surely you know the answer already? If not married, the answer is "YES"!

If a moon (moon1) had a moon (moon2) would not moon1 be a planet and not a moon?

See #11

Moons do have moons - there are a couple of small moons in orbit around our moon right now - spacecraft.

And of course, the earth is a satellite of the sun, so in that sense also, moons have moons.

It's all a question of relative proportion, distance and gravity. The earth can support a moon because it's very far from the sun, so that the earth moon system looks like a single mass. In order for a moon of the moon to looks like a single mass, it would have to be either very small - relative to the moon, or the moon-moon system would have to be very far away from the earth.

Also, our moon can't sustain it's own moon because its gravity is all wonky. Any object captured by the moon will soon crash into it - due to the moon's uneven gravity. This is why we have no permanent (or long term) unpowered satellites around the moon as we do around the earth. You need a relatively even gravitational pull if you want to have natural satellites for the long term.

"Why Don't Moons Have Moons?"

Do naked pimples on the but count?

Did you mean your "Butt"?

Not mine! It was hypothetical. Be my guest.

Not enough green cheese!

Seriously, would someone on a moon with a moon see phases on the secondary moon like we see on ours?

Good question:

Now, let us think and find out how will we see the earth, if we stand on the Moon?

Many aspects:

Size, phases, ......