Lots of Planets May Have Big Moons Just Like Earth’s.

The Moon is awesome. The idea that it is a hovering reminder of an insane collision billions of years ago is rad beyond measure. What I didn’t know until today is that the Moon is a relatively big son of a bitch. See, while it isn’t enormous unto itself, the relative size of the Moon in comparison to Earth was thought to make it special. Not anymore though. Apparently lots of planets may have relatively large moons of their own. Sorry Luna, I still love you.

io9:

[The] Moon is so big compared to Earth that some astronomers have argued we really live in a double planet system, as both objects are large enough to meet the criteria to be considered planets. That’s very much a minority view, but it speaks to to just how unique our moon really is when compared to the others in our solar system.

But it appears the Moon might be surprisingly ordinary compared to those in other solar systems. Researchers at the University of Zurich and the University of Colorado ran a series of computer simulations to see how planets form from gas and smaller chunks of rock. They then used that data to see how often huge impacts like that between Earth and the Mars-sized object might occur.

They discovered that forming something similar to an Earth-Moon system is far from a one in a million chance – if anything, it’s closer to one in twelve. Specifically, they found that the chances of creating a system with a planet at least half Earth’s mass and a satellite at least half the Moon’s mass is between 1 in 4 and 1 in 45…but the much simpler way of saying that is just that the odds are about 1 in 12, once everything’s averaged together.

What’s exciting about all this is that the Moon is generally credited with a huge role in the development of life on Earth. The presence of a large satellite helped stabilize Earth’s orbit, which means our climate has remained far more gentle and less volatile than it would have without the Moon around. That’s not to say we needed the Moon for life to evolve, but it sure made things easier, and the fact that 1 in 12 rocky exoplanets might also have Moons is good news in the search for alien life.

Good news for alien life!, sad news for The Moon. Who is already totally jealous of Erf.