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Posted by: Patteroast Oct 5 2009, 12:35 PM

I'm a big fan of the timed quiz site Sporcle, and they recently added the ability for registered users to create their own quizzes. I made this one, and haven't really been able to think of who might want to take a swing at it... figured someone here might!

http://www.sporcle.com/games/Patteroast/solarsystem_allmoons

Yes, this includes all the 2 km rocks swarming around Jupiter that have been given names. I've also made smaller quizzes for each of the gas giants' moons, they can be found under my profile, and are good for working your way up to the big quiz.

Posted by: Juramike Oct 5 2009, 01:50 PM

Ouch!

And when I peeked at the answers, I only saw a few that I recognized.

Posted by: alan Oct 5 2009, 02:53 PM

Yikes!

I managed 41

Posted by: Marz Oct 5 2009, 03:21 PM

Yikes ^2! I hit a wall at 22 and kinda got lucky guessing another 4.

The timer made me really nervous, until I realized how little I knew. I only know one moon of Neptune? /shame

Posted by: volcanopele Oct 5 2009, 04:15 PM

I got 63... I only missed Anthe of the Saturnian moons we look at regularly. Of the random junk in the outer satellite systems, I got Kore, Neso, Phoebe, and all but Ananke of the pre-1974 outer Jovian system.

Posted by: Poolio Oct 5 2009, 04:29 PM

For no particular reason I decided a couple years ago to memorize all the moons of Saturn. That helped a lot, although I still blanked on some of them, and there were at least three I could remember but couldn't spell. Some of those Norse moons are ridiculous.

In all I managed 68.

Posted by: elakdawalla Oct 5 2009, 04:42 PM

I only got 47, pretty poor I think. I'm proud I got the moons of Eris and Haumea, but there are at least four moons in the Saturn system that I really should have remembered. I'm blaming mommy brain.

--Emily

Posted by: Paolo Oct 5 2009, 05:04 PM

60. Wow that was difficult (especially remembering how Tethys is written...)

Posted by: jasedm Oct 5 2009, 06:24 PM

Oh I win so far! - I got 80 (and I've had a few beers too) Missed the outer Jovian and outer Saturnian moons, and also polydeuces and Daphnis.
I am obviously king of the nerds....

Posted by: SFJCody Oct 5 2009, 07:57 PM

65. Managed to remember enough characters from the Tempest to get a few Uranian irregulars and bump up my score. But for some reason I blanked when trying to remember the names of those little co-orbitals at Saturn.

Posted by: Patteroast Oct 6 2009, 01:57 AM

Glad people have liked it! I've gotten them all, so it is possible. Takes some practice, though. Took a couple days trying the individual planet quizzes for Jupiter and Saturn before getting there.

If anyone was wondering, the reason the Moon wasn't guessed by 100% of people is because I have some strange friends who are amused by skewing results by playing quizzes and answering only Laomedeia.

Posted by: nprev Oct 6 2009, 02:36 AM

Took it cold & got 39. Should've been 40, but I can't spell "Epimethus"...uh..."Epimethius"...no...y'know, the one around Saturn that pals around with Janus...to save my life!!!

Cool quiz, thanks; lots of fun!

Posted by: Hungry4info Oct 6 2009, 06:42 AM

53 on first attempt.

Posted by: Vultur Oct 6 2009, 07:49 AM

Wow, I really haven't been keeping up on all these...

'Erriapus'? 'Suttungr'? What mythology are these even from? Jupiter's moons at least stuck to classical naming... why break that tradition and make them ten times harder to remember? It might make sense if they were from Chinese legends or something else familiar to a large group of people, but no...

The great advantage of using classical sources for names is that they are easy to pronounce (spelled pretty phonetically) and easy to look up the sources for. The same thing applies in biological nomenclature - there are trends, like the current fad for naming large pterosaurs with '-azhdarch-'.

Posted by: volcanopele Oct 6 2009, 10:08 AM

Personally I like the challenge of attempting to pronounce them. Having hard to pronounce feature names or satellite names makes conference presentations that much more interesting ;-)

Besides, we will cross the bridge on pronouncability when Cassini flies by one of those little guys...

Posted by: Hungry4info Oct 6 2009, 11:15 AM

I would assume the scarcity of deities would be an issue.
On the other hand, those rocks way out there... do you really think anyone cares enough about them to visit one? (Phoebe is exceptional, being rather large, and along Cassini's flight path).

Posted by: djellison Oct 6 2009, 11:33 AM

No.

Next question

Posted by: Stu Oct 6 2009, 11:50 AM

Evil, evil, eeeeevil quiz...!

Posted by: Phil Stooke Oct 6 2009, 12:55 PM

I did quite well until I got to Kltpzyxm, when I was suddenly yanked into another dimension.

Phil

Posted by: cbcnasa Oct 6 2009, 02:31 PM

I only got 21, no one can say I cheated with that score. The spellings hurt a bit.

Posted by: elakdawalla Oct 6 2009, 04:16 PM

I once saw a national news anchor (I now forget which one) delivering a 10-second report on the discovery of the Enceladus plumes, and he balked at even trying to pronounce Enceladus. Which is really stupid, because he would not have balked at learning how to pronounce "Ahmadinajad," a name many Americans stumble over. So just because they're classical doesn't mean they're easy, and just because they're not classical doesn't mean we can't learn to pronounce them properly.

I think it's cool that there are these difficult-to-pronounce names out there as hooks for inspiring curiosity into the mythologies of other cultures. Learning that there are other ways and other points of view out there can only be a good thing

--Emily

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Oct 6 2009, 05:26 PM

I very vividly recall a news anchor (I think it was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Fishman in Los Angeles) reporting on the discovery of volcanoes on one of Jupiter's moons. After reporting on how the discovery came about, he wrapped up the story by saying the moon they were discovered on was named "Ten."

Posted by: mchan Oct 7 2009, 03:54 AM

You had me going. I had to check the answers that there was no moon named after a Superman villain.

Posted by: Rob Pinnegar Oct 7 2009, 04:40 AM

I managed to get 70, much to my surprise. Probably mostly due to having memorized ALL the known Solar System moons in the early 1980s when I was a kid.

Some of them I can't believe I remembered. In particular, "Bestla". It seems that, somewhere in my brain, there's a cell devoted to remembering that one.

Posted by: Vultur Oct 8 2009, 05:51 AM

True. I certainly never would have heard of Haumea if they hadn't named a dwarf planet after her...



Wow. That's just ... incredible. Did they not talk about the program before they aired it?

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Oct 8 2009, 05:58 AM

It was a live evening news show. The stories are about 15 seconds long and handed to the anchor 10 minutes ahead of time by someone else who writes the story.

Posted by: scalbers Dec 6 2009, 07:46 PM

I got 37 - so I need some practice...

Posted by: volcanopele Dec 6 2009, 08:11 PM

I took it again to see if I did anybetter. Got 79. Mostly improved by getting all the inner neptune satellites and got a few more random Jupiter and Saturn outer sats (Fornjot is still my favorite moon name). Didn't realize though that Herse had been added to the quiz.

Posted by: alan Dec 6 2009, 10:17 PM

Did that about a month ago, tried again today without reviewing to see how many I remebered, was able to recall 137

Posted by: ynyralmaen Dec 6 2009, 10:43 PM

Anyone want to extend Blur's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCjWlEdULTI&feature=related to cover them all?

Posted by: Thu Dec 7 2009, 08:02 AM

I could only name 30 of them then give up

Posted by: jasedm Jun 27 2010, 11:37 PM

http://www.sporcle.com/games/mirek1977/biggest_body_each_letter one's a real challenge....(I got 18)

Posted by: volcanopele Jun 28 2010, 12:03 AM

Beat ya by 1, got 19. Most are no brainers, though how I knew Y, I have no idea.

Posted by: Mirek Jun 28 2010, 12:04 AM

Ha, ha. That's my quiz. Thanks jasedm.

Posted by: nprev Jun 28 2010, 12:16 AM

Embarrassing...I got 16. (Would've had 17, but couldn't spell the "Q" one to save my life...still can't!)

Good quiz, though, lots of fun! Thanks, Mirek.

Posted by: Mirek Jun 28 2010, 12:25 AM

Thanks nprev. I'm glad you have enjoyed it. Means a lot.

P.S. How nerdy am I that I found my own quiz mentioned on an unrelated site?

Posted by: Hungry4info Jun 28 2010, 12:29 AM

Got 19, didn't know B, F, L, W, X, Y, Z and with the exception of Y I don't think I've ever heard of those as far as solar system objects go...

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jun 28 2010, 12:35 AM

I only got as far as 'The Moon'.

Phil

Posted by: volcanopele Jun 28 2010, 12:38 AM

I'll admit, I looked up the spelling of that one. I don't think that's cheating; I knew the name of the object, just not precisely how to spell it.

Posted by: djellison Jun 28 2010, 01:30 AM

18, but like Jason I had to cheat on one spelling.

I've never ever heard of B, F, K, L, W, X, Y or Z

Posted by: volcanopele Jun 28 2010, 01:43 AM

Yeah, it seems to always be those eight (though I got Y). K is the only one I had heard of before.

Posted by: Astro0 Jun 28 2010, 01:52 AM

I like to keep it simple...it's either:

"The Moon" or "a moon of..."

See, it's easy!!!

Posted by: Poolio Jun 28 2010, 04:21 AM

19. Missed B, F, K, L, W, X, and Z. Of those the only one I'd even heard of before was K. Nice quiz.

Posted by: tasp Jun 28 2010, 02:43 PM

Just curious, I note a few of the higher numbered asteroids have been bestowed names of, shall we say, a rather more whimsical nature. (17058 Rocknroll springs to mind). Would the total number of moons be approaching a figure where this might occur?


Or has it already, is one of the more etymologically obscure names a play on words in a foreign language, or refers to something maybe not entirely 100% serious?

Posted by: jasedm Jun 28 2010, 05:19 PM

I think there's a good few names available as yet for moons of the major planets, which comply with the conventions used so far:

Greco-Roman, Norse, Inuit and Gallic myth for Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Pluto
Characters from Pope and Shakespeare for Uranus

Due to the high number of the asteroids, these sources are all but exhausted, and other conventions are starting to appear. I believe the IAU have a put a bar on people naming discoveries after themselves, or their pets, but some bizarre names continue to appear.

I don't know if it's true, but the two latest discoveries at Pluto (Nix and Hydra) are reputed to deliberately share the initials of the New Horizons mission to Pluto.

Posted by: mchan Jun 29 2010, 11:17 AM

16. Could not spell the dwarf planets H and Q.

Have heard of F only because there have been mission studies. It is one of the bigger main belt asteroids and one with low inclination to ecliptic.