Ploonet

Ploonet is the new word the scientific community has come up with to describe a moon that becomes a planet.

• A moon can become a planet if it leaves the orbit of its parent planet and takes up residence in a stable orbit around its star.
• At this point, this orbiting rock is neither a moon nor a planet, hence the term, ploonet.
• Our moon might soon desert us and become a ploonet as well.
• It is moving away from the Earth at the rate of four centimetres every year, but at that rate, it will take five billion years to actually forsake us.
• This theory of Ploonet could explain other astronomical phenomena like why sometimes stars flicker and how planets get rings. It could also help in understanding why we have not found any exomoons until now.

Source: Firstpost

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