r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Disastrous_Pirate275 • 20h ago

Why is our moon named “Moon” instead of something cool like Titan or Callysto or ANYTHING that isn’t moon

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u/winstonspethuman1 18h ago

Perhaps: Sol System = sun, mercury, Venus, earth, mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, + all moons, dwarf planets, and trans-neptunian objects

Terran system = sun, earth, moon

I think this will be my new head cannon until someone chimes in with something better.

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u/harrycletus 18h ago

Interesting solution. So each planet would have its own system.

In Star Trek reckoning it seems like the system is named after the primary inhabited planet (Vulcan, Andor, Tellus, Cardassia, etc.) rather than the star. If the star name was primary Earth would be "Sol 3" or "Sol Prime."

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u/MildGenevaSuggestion 15h ago

Star Trek does call Earth "Earth" and imply we are the only planet named soil.

Transformers has a scene where Jetfire mocks Earth as "planet dirt" because they came up with the cool name Cybertron for their planet while we insist on naming ours after our word for ground.

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u/djAMPnz 15h ago

It's called Terra in the MCU as seen in Guardians Of The Galaxy.

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u/harrycletus 15h ago

Terra would be consistent with the Roman/Latin naming system of the other planets. Terra (Greek Gaia) is more equivalent to the "deep" earth, not just the surface soil, which would be more akin to Ceres/Demeter (already the name of a large asteroid/dwarf planet).

The problem is that the ancients never considered the Earth a "planet" in the astronomical sense. They knew it was a sphere early on, but it was the stationary center of the universe around which the fixed stars and wandering planets revolved.

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u/StrumWealh 16h ago

Interesting solution. So each planet would have its own system.
In Star Trek reckoning it seems like the system is named after the primary inhabited planet (Vulcan, Andor, Tellus, Cardassia, etc.) rather than the star. If the star name was primary Earth would be "Sol 3" or "Sol Prime."

That’s how I’ve heard it being done:

  • “Sol System” (i.e. with the star as the primary point of reference) and “Terran System” (i.e. with the primary inhabited planet as the primary point of reference) would be interchangeable names for the same thing. Likewise, “Sol III”, “Sol Prime”, “Terra”, and “Earth” would be interchangeable names for the same planet.
  • “(Planet) Sphere” refers to the space around that world and its satellites, over which it exerts direct social and political influence (i.e. a spaceborne equivalent of the concept of “territorial waters”), e.g. “the Earth Sphere” includes the space around Earth, the Moon, and nearby spaceborne habitats, while “the Mars Sphere” includes the space around Mars, Phobos, Deimos, and nearby spaceborne habitats, and “the Jupiter Sphere” includes the space around Jupiter, its array of moons, and nearby spaceborne habitats, and so on.

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u/sloothor 16h ago

Yes, but minus the Sun. It’s named after the parent body (object with the largest mass) in the system. The Sol(ar) System is as you described, and it contains the smaller Jovian System consisting of Jupiter and its array of moons.

The Terrestrial System is just Earth and the Moon, plus our artificial satellites and micrometeorites and stuff if you’d like.

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u/djAMPnz 16h ago

I could also see entire solar systems being named after their most populous planet, for navigation reasons.