Wonders of the Universe: the Moons of the Solar System
Tom McLeish’s public lecture from the Ordered Universe symposium in Rome, 7th April 2016, given at the Notre Dame Global Gateway in Rome. Tom takes us on a tour of the Moons of the solar system. Just over 400 years ago, in 1609 or 1610, Galileo identified the four largest satellites of Jupiter as true moons of the giant planet. Since then, both earth and space-based exploration of the solar system have revealed dozens of rocky worlds in orbit around the planets. These are the true occupiers of the imagined ‘epicycles’ of old rather than the planets themselves. One of the greatest surprises to emerge in this great epoch of exploration is that no two are alike. We will survey briefly ice-moons, clouded moons, volcanic moons, two-faced moons and more, in a tour of the solar system’s rich family of worlds.