this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2024
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[โ€“] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought for an object to be a satellite it's orbital point had to be located inside the body of the other entity.

[โ€“] lunarul@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There's currently no formal definition requiring that. By that definition, none of Pluto's five moons would be moons, since they all orbit the same barycenter.

There's a whole discussion about it here and it looks like it might be reconsidered in the future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charon_(moon)#Classification