galyen@scicom.AlphaCDC.COM (Robert Galyen) (11/14/86)
A recent article by J.J. Rawal (Nehru Planetarium, Bombay, India) published in the October(?), 1986 issue of 'Earth, Moon, and Planets', mathematically suggests the possibility of a moon for Mercury. Rawal bases his calculations on the eccentricity of the planet's orbit, and has indicated an orbital altitude of 225,000-252,700 km. Rawal is using as the basis for his calculations formulas drived by Innanan (1979) for a moon-planet-Sun system, which was derived from original work by King (1962) for a star- cluster-galaxy system. I'm not an astronomer so all this is fundamentally bizarre to me, I was not aware that there was even a question as to the possibility of such a satellite, have any of the net astronomers any additional info on this topic? --robert-- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cold hearted orb that rules the night That steals the color from our sight Red is gray and yellow is white But we decide which is right And which is an illusion. -Moody Blues