ploonet
nounEtymology 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).
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Astronomy, Natural sciences, 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.
- 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.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, volume 489, number 2, page 2313:
- 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.2020, Varsha M, “Ploonets: Runaway Moons”, in Waves, archived from the original on 06 Jun 2020, page 2:
1 more example
- 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.2021 April, Randall Hyman, “The galaxy's marvelous rogues and misfits”, in Astronomy, page 22:
- Related terms
- moonmoon, brown subdwarf, sub-brown dwarf, rogue planet, dwarf planet, moonlet, exomoon