Planets have moons. Stars have planets. Galaxies orbit other galaxies. So… can a moon have its own moon? In 2018 two astronomers took the question seriously — and the internet immediately named the answer after a derpy wolf.
A kid’s question, a real paper
The story goes that astronomer Juna Kollmeier’s young son asked her whether moons could have moons. She didn’t have a good answer, so she teamed up with astronomer Sean Raymond to work it out. Their paper, published in 2018, ran the numbers on the tides and gravity involved.
The answer: yes, but it’s tricky
A moon’s moon — a submoon in the paper’s language — has to survive a gravitational tug of war. It needs to be:
- Small. Roughly ten kilometers across or less. Big ones get torn apart or pulled away.
- Around a big moon. The host moon needs enough gravity to hold onto it.
- Far from the planet. The host moon must orbit far enough out that the planet’s gravity doesn’t steal the little one.
Only some moons in our Solar System fit the bill. The researchers pointed to Saturn’s Titan and Iapetus, Jupiter’s Callisto — and our own Moon — as places where a submoon could theoretically survive. None has been found yet, which itself is a clue about how moons form.
Enter: moonmoon
The paper said “submoon.” Science writers and the internet had other ideas. New Scientist floated moonmoon, a direct nod to the wolf meme, and it spread across science news and social media. Other suggestions included moonitos, moonettes and grandmoons, but the wolf won the popularity contest. No official name has been adopted; that would be up to the International Astronomical Union.
So, technically, when we say $MOONMOON is going to the moon, we’re being redundant. Moon Moon is the moon’s moon.
Why this matters for a meme coin
Most meme coins borrow a joke. Moon Moon borrowed a joke that got adopted by science journalism. It’s a rare meme with a real-world echo, and it gives the pack an endless supply of hooks: every time someone publishes new research on exomoons or submoons, Moon Moon has something to say.
Fun fact to drop in the group chat: a tiny submoon around a big moon could, in theory, be stable for billions of years. Moon Moon’s attention span, by contrast, is about four seconds.
Want more lore? Read the complete history of Moon Moon or browse the lore page.
