Bigger Moons Have Moons, And Some Are Calling Them ‘Moonmoons’

By David Barden

Have you ever gazed up at the night sky, looked up at the moon and wondered if it could have a moon of its own?

While you probably haven’t, a curious four-year-old did back in 2015 and on Tuesday, his astronomer mom and one of her colleague’s published a paper that essentially says: Yes, a moon can have its own moon.

The Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Juna Kollmeier AKA ‘The Junaverse’ told HuffPost that while none of the planets’ moons in our solar system currently have moons (that we know of), “Earth’s moon, one of Jupiter’s moons and two of Saturn’s moons” may all have once had moons.

But the real question is: what do you call a moon’s moon?

While Kollmeier and astronomer Sean Raymond referred to them as ‘submoons’ in their paper, the New Scientist has dubbed them ‘moonmoons.’

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