Space Game! Where in the Solar System is Destination Eleven? (day 4)

Hey Space Bloggers,

After reading the ‘day 3’ clue, I’m guessing that you are almost as confused as Galileo was to see that Destination Ten’s ‘moons’ suddenly disappeared, only to reappear four years later as ‘arms’.  Right?

Galileo Galilee

Hint#1: What Galileo saw was neither ‘moons’ nor ‘arms’. For today’s post, we’ll just call them ‘things’.

Now I’m going to tell you how the ‘things’ did their disappearing act. Then I bet you can tell me just what those ‘things’ really are. Ready?

Here goes: When Galileo could NOT see the ‘things’, he was looking at them edge-on and they were too thin to see through his homemade telescope.  When he COULD observe them, the ‘things’ were tilted at an angle and he could easily see their wide expanse through his telescope.  So that means that the ‘things’ are large and wide, but very thin, sort of like a pizza.

So now do you know what Galileo saw?  [Hint#2: It rhymes with ‘things’.]

Christiaan Huygens

But don’t think this means that Destination Eleven doesn’t have moons.  Because it does. Lots. The first one, TITAN, was discovered in 1655 by Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch astronomer.

Just a few years later an astronomer named Cassini discovered four more moons, IAPETUS, RHEA, TETHYS, AND DIONE. Since then, 13 more have been discovered bringing the number of moons orbiting Destination Eleven to a grand total of 18.

So long for now, Space Bloggers. But be sure to check back next week when I announce the answer to that burning question: Where in the world is Destination Eleven?  That is, unless YOU write in with answer first!