Planets You Can Live On


"For the smaller craters, it's like if you're filling a bucket, eventually your bucket gets full, but if you keep pouring cups of water into the bucket, you can't tell how many cups of water beyond full you've gone. Looking at the larger craters at the subsurface might give us insight, because that 'bucket' isn't full yet," Dr. Soderblom added. A moon is defined as a natural satellite in orbit around another body that, in turn, is in orbit around its Star. The moon is kept in its position by both its own gravity, as well as its host's gravitational grip. Some planets have many moons, some have only a small number, and still others have none at all. Several asteroids inhabiting our Solar System are circled by very small moons, and some dwarf planets--such as Pluto--also host moons. "Our gravity data are opening up a new chapter of lunar history, during which the Moon was a more dynamic place than suggested by the cratered landscape that is visible to the naked eye. More work is needed to understand the cause of this newfound pattern of gravity anomalies, and the implications for the history of the Moon," Dr. Andrews-Hanna explained in the October 1, 2014 NASA Press Release.