ploonet
English edit
Etymology edit
Blend of planet + moon. Coined in 2019 by the research team of Mario Sucerquia, Jaime A Alvarado-Montes, Jorge I Zuluaga, Nicolás Cuello, Cristian Giuppone (see quotations below).[1][2]
Noun edit
ploonet (plural ploonets)
- (astronomy, sciences, neologism) A theoretical planetary body that formed as a moon orbiting a planet, but which has become tidally detached, so that it enters orbit about its star, separated from its parent planet.
- 2019, Mario Sucerquia, Jaime A Alvarado-Montes, Jorge I Zuluaga, Nicolás Cuello, Cristian Giuppone, “Ploonets: formation, evolution, and detectability of tidally detached exomoons”, in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society[1], volume 489, number 2, page 2313:
- This paper explores the scenario where large regular exomoons escape after tidal interchange of angular momentum with its parent planet, becoming small planets by themselves. We name this hypothetical type of object a ploonet.
- 2020, Varsha M, “Ploonets: Runaway Moons”, in Waves[2], archived from the original on 6 June 2020, page 2:
- The researchers, who used simulations to explain the same, found that the simulated Ploonets were quite short-lived, crashing into the star or their parent planet in 0.5-1 million years.
- 2021 April, Randall Hyman, “The galaxy's marvelous rogues and misfits”, in Astronomy, page 22:
- For now, such leftover debris fields may be the best chance for astronomers to infer the existence of ploonets. After all, even if astronomers detect a runaway ploonet orbiting its host star, it would be hard to distinguish it from normal planets.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:ploonet.
Translations edit
See also edit
- moonmoon (a moon of a moon)
- brown subdwarf (a planetary mass object which forms in the manner of a star)
- sub-brown dwarf (a planetary mass object which is not part of a star system, wandering interstellar space without a star)
- rogue planet (a planet that has been ejected from its star system, to wander interstellar space without a star)
- dwarf planet (a planetary mass object whose orbit about a star is strewn with comparable or larger mass objects)
- moonlet (a small moon, shepherding ring debris to keep a planetary ring in shape, as part of the ring)
- exomoon (a moon located beyond the Solar System)
References edit
- ^ Astronomy Magazine, "Ploonets: When a planet's moon goes rogue", Jake Parks, 15 July 2019
- ^ How Stuff Works Magazine, "Ploonets: When Moons Become Planets", Patrick J. Kiger, 23 July 2019