Post by Centaur on Dec 16, 2011 19:05:48 GMT -6
Occasionally on astronomical message boards someone initiates a thread asking that the Moon be given a name of its own, with the implication that the word moon now applies to all natural satellites of planets. Such a thread is now running at the BAUT Forum: www.bautforum.com/showthread.php/125533-Do-you-think-we-will-ever-name-earth-s-moon
Other posters and I attempted to explain that the Moon already has a name, and gave reasons that its name has been applied by analogy to other objects discovered over the last four hundred years. My third post in that thread reads as follows:
Perhaps better than changing the name of the Moon would be devising a new general term for a natural satellite of another planet. I suggest “moonoid” or “lunoid”. The suffix “oid” implies that the term refers to an object with characteristics appearing similar to those of the Moon, but is not really the Moon.
Other posters and I attempted to explain that the Moon already has a name, and gave reasons that its name has been applied by analogy to other objects discovered over the last four hundred years. My third post in that thread reads as follows:
Perhaps better than changing the name of the Moon would be devising a new general term for a natural satellite of another planet. I suggest “moonoid” or “lunoid”. The suffix “oid” implies that the term refers to an object with characteristics appearing similar to those of the Moon, but is not really the Moon.