So the moon is roughly 1/20th of earth,
essentially making it a duel planet system..
is there any othe rplanets we have found with a system like Earths? (every other planet seems to have TINY satelites/moons)
2007-10-19 14:33:32 · 5 answers · asked by SwiftKill 4 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Duel Planet? Ummm I wouldn't say that. Ther moon is about the size of the continental United States if held right up against the earth. There are many duel stars, but we have only discovered a bit more than a hundred planets outside of our solar system and none so far that we can tell are "duel planets".
Its an unimaginably huge universe though and I believe there are probably thousands if not more.
2007-10-19 14:42:48 · answer #1 · answered by Mark K 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The moon is 1/81 the mass of Earth. But is only one quarter the diameter of the Earth.
And scientists do sometimes refer to the Earth/Moon system as a double planet.
If you count Pluto (which is not a true planet anymore), then it does even better than the Earth/Moon system. Its satellite Charon is about one half the diameter of Pluto (but only about 12% Pluto's mass).
In our solar system, these are the only 2 systems with relatively large satellites. All the other moons in the solar system are very small compared to their primaries.
And in other solar systems - we don't know yet, we are only just finding large planets around other stars. Once we can observe these systems better we may find some true double planets where the 2 are very close in size and mass.
By the way, "duel" means to fight. You meant to use the word "dual", meaning 2.
2007-10-19 14:46:40 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Pluto's Moon Charon is an even bigger fraction of Pluto's size. But of course Pluto is now only considered a "dwarf planet" and not a "real" planet, because it is so small; smaller than our Moon.
2007-10-19 14:37:59 · answer #3 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
We have not yet seen such a configuration among planets but binary systems are a common configuration among stars. And looking at Pluto and Charon it seems likely that such a configuration could very well be common among extrasolar planets.
2007-10-19 14:48:37 · answer #4 · answered by DrAnders_pHd 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not certain, but check out space.com has all the info you need for your curiosity! I just love the site!
2007-10-20 12:51:55 · answer #5 · answered by violettelillyrose81 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋