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I had never thought about that. I just googled to find out Jupiter has 79 moons? WTF…


According to this website, there are dozens of "moons" that orbit 10 to 20 million of kilometers away from Jupiter and have diameters between just 1 and 10 km. It's time for a change of nomenclature!

https://theplanets.org/moons/


When I was in high school there were about 50 moons in the entire system. There were zero exoplanets now, there’s thousands today.


I'm happy that we're finding ever more exoplanets! I remember, as a kid, that there was speculation as to whether they even existed.

I'm less happy about the moon inflation in our solar system. It's pointless. I honestly find the claim that Jupiter has 79 moons misleading. A 1 km rock orbiting 20 million kilometers away, really? It's so far removed from what our moon is that we should not be using the same word to describe it. It's fine to call it a satellite.


So does Saturn. At least, maybe not exactly the same number, but a number just a large




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