There are dozens upon dozens of moons in the Solar System, ranging from airless worlds like Earth’s Moon to those with an atmosphere (most notably, Saturn’s Titan). Jupiter and Saturn have many moons each, and even Mars has a couple of small asteroid-like ones. But what about Venus, the planet that for a while, astronomers thought about as Earth’s twin? The answer is no moons at all. That’s right, Venus (and the planet Mercury) are the only two planets that don’t have a single natural moon orbiting them.
Because Mercury is so close to the Sun and its gravity, it wouldn’t be able to hold on to its own moon. Any moon would most likely crash into Mercury or maybe go into orbit around the Sun and eventually get pulled into it.
“Most likely, Venus was slammed early on and gained a moon from the resulting debris. The satellite slowly spiraled away from the planet, due to tidal interactions, much the way our Moon is still slowly creeping away from Earth,” Sky and Telescope wrote of the research.
Picture Credit : Google