why do planets have multiple moons or no moons at all instead of one like earth?

Question

why do planets have multiple moons or no moons at all instead of one like earth?

In: 1

Answer 1

In addition to DarkAlman’s comment, we have very little examples to draw our conclusions from. Our Solar System has only 9 examples (Pluto is a planet dammit, screw you NdGT). We’ve got the following pattern:

– Mercury: 0

– Venus: 0

– Earth: 1

– Mars: 2

– Jupiter: a kabillion (80+)

– Saturn: a kabillion (83+)

– Uranus: 27

– Neptune: 14

– Pluto: 5

We can observe a few things, obviously much bigger planets = more moons, and the inner planets have few moons, probably influenced by the outer planets collecting them.

And Earths moon appears to be unique, not a captured object but a result of a collision. How unique? Well again we only have a handful of examples so its hard to say.