How Many Moons does Earth Have?

By Anupum Pant

The planet Mars has two moons. Jupiter has 67. Saturn has 62 moons. Uranus 27, Neptune 14. And these aren’t fixed (keep a track of the current count). However, there’s one planet whose number of moons is a topic of no debate, right? The Earth. The Earth has one moon and everyone knows that. How sure are you about it?

We see one big moon in the sky. But, no, the answer isn’t one all the time. Sometimes earth has more than one moon, more than one natural satellite to be specific. In the year 1997, an object was discovered – 3753 Cruithne. It was what they call in the quasi orbital of earth – A quasi orbital natural satellite. It goes around the earth in something called a horseshoe orbit, and it’s messy. The object almost reaches venus and mars.

Cruithne orbits the sun about once a year, but it takes nearly 800 years to complete this messy ring shape around the Earth’s orbit.

via [Discover magazine]

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