Re: Can a moon have moons?

Great question, Tyler!

Certainly a moon can have moons. Just as our Moon orbits the Earth which in 
turn orbits the Sun there can be still smaller bodies orbiting the Moon. In 
this case, there are no natural satellites of the Moon. Just a few made and 
launched there by us Earthlings.

But elsewhere in our solar system there are thosands of moons orbiting the 
larger planets. Most of them are just the size of dust and rocks and make 
of the rings around Saturn and Jupiter and the other gas giants. They're 
all so small that they're mostly just "moons" of the big planets. But some 
interact with each other, as well. One of Saturn's rings was found to be 
"sheparded" by two tiny moons which swap position when they get near each 
other.

And recently, the Galileo spacecraft flew by the asteroid Gaspra and 
everyone was surprised when the pictures showed that tiny Gaspra had a 
small moon traveling with it (it was named Ida). 


So you see, Tyler, there's really all kinds of moons out there.