The Moon

[TurningLeaves]

There are almost 350 moons in our solar system. 175 orbit the eight planets. Nine orbit the dwarf planets. The rest orbit other bodies such as asteroids.

They all have names. Mars' moons are called Phobos and Deimos. Jupiter has 79 moons including biggest in the solar system called Ganymede. There is also Io, Europa and Callisto.

So why, when it comes to Earth's own, singular and extremely influential moon, have we not named it something cool? We simply call it..... the moon. 🤷🏼‍♀️

From our perspective it’s THE moon 😁

What do you think residents of Mars or Jupiter call theirs?

Because that is its proper name. Perhaps the question should be, why are the others referred to as moons when they are satellites?

when I was little, I used to say that Charon was my favourite moon

now Pluto isn't even a planet, what is Charon?!

We knew about THE moon thousands of years before all those other new fangled moons.

It's a bit like people calling their vacuum cleaner a Hoover.

It’s the original and the best, that’s why.

Because that is its proper name. Perhaps the question should be, why are the others referred to as moons when they are satellites?

Aaaahhhh! I see! So we have one satellite called Moon and we call all the other satellites, moons. Like PP pointed out, it's like how we first had a vacuum cleaner called Hoover and we (some of us) now call all other vacuum cleaners, hoovers.

Thank you! It's been bugging me for 45 years!

It can, and is argued by some astronomers that Pluto and Charon are really a double planet as the bary centre is part way between them and not beneath the surface of Pluto, unlike the Earth Moon system where the bary center is beneath the Earth's surface.

Isn't our moon called 'Luna'? That's a lovely moony name.

Well the Romans called it Luna, and the Greeks called it Selene. But 'Moon' it is.

It's like how we call The Queen The Queen because she's our queen but we call the Queen of Spain the Queen of Spain because she's the Queen of somewhere else.