Moons of Moons of Moons
My question is simple: How many nested moons are physically possible?
If our moon had a moon, that would be a nesting of 1.
I'm assuming it's easily possible for a really big moon to be orbiting a gas giant and have its own moon. If the dimensions were right, that moon could also have a moon?
How many moons deep can we go? Let me know if I'm missing something. I would like answers with calculations not just random guesses! I'm asking what is physically possible, not what is realistically plausible due to the difficulty of such a system forming.
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1 answer
Theoretically infinite, though the classification would get interesting.
Consider the Moon. It orbits us, the Earth. That's a nesting of 0, right? Now consider the Earth. What's to say that the Earth isn't just a moon of the Sun, apart from arbitrary human classification systems?
On this logic, you could have theoretically infinite moons. If you re-classify any orbiting body as a moon, and you start with a massive enough body, then you can have entire stellar systems orbiting it - giving you big numbers for the nesting. Think: the Sol system, orbiting another larger body, which in turn orbits an even larger body. That gives a nesting of 4 (I think.)
If you're not up for reclassifying, then the potential is small for nesting moons. According to Wikipedia/Natural satellite, the definition of a moon is:
a celestial body that orbits another body (a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body), which is called its primary, and that is not artificial.
That's limiting, because the biggest object you can have a moon orbiting is a planet, which are (comparatively) small. With each orbiting moon, you have a smaller object, and eventually you're left with nothing.
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