The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. 2002.
moon
A natural satellite of a planet; an object that revolves around a planet. The planets vary in the number of their moons; for example, Mercury and Venus have none, the Earth has one, and Jupiter has seventeen or more. The planets’ moons, like the planets themselves, shine by reflected light.
‡ The Earth’s moon is about 240,000 miles away and is about 2,000 miles in diameter. The volume of the Earth is fifty times that of the moon; the mass of the Earth is about eighty times that of the moon. The moon has no atmosphere, and its gravity is about one-sixth that of the Earth.
