Do we really need more moons?
Rocks in the sky becoming too much of a hassle

By Betty Sharington, cherished and intelligent member of our community

July 2000 -- What do you suppose you would do if you were to find a rock outside your house? Suppose that it's just a plain, ordinary rock, like every other rock outside your house; nothing in the least bit unusual. Would you decide that it's just another insignificant rock and continue with your life, or would you, say, research it, spend lots of money, and make it national news? If you were our government, your house was Earth and that rock was floating around in the sky millions of miles away, then you would have chosen the latter.

At the University of Arizona, a couple of "astronomers"-people paid to look mindlessly at the sky-discovered what they hope is a "moon"-a really big rock with nothing better to do than to fly eternally around a bigger rock or a ball of gas-flying around the "planet" Jupiter. This three-miles-in-diameter rock is designated S/1999 J1 until it is confirmed to be the seventeenth moon of Jupiter. While three miles may seem quite large to you, to the universe it is smaller than a grain of sand. But in our overcrowded society, do we really need more moons? I for one think that these astronomers should stop discovering moons, and soon, you will hopefully feel the same way.

The question that you are probably asking right now is, "What do I, the average working-class American citizen, care if these scientists discover these rocks?" Let me assure you: quite a bit.

Jupiter, shown here with moons (big rocks) floating around it

There is one word that gets the attention of most working-class American citizens like yourself: taxes. You see, in our schools, students are taught about all this space stuff in the subject "astronomy." With the discovery of a new moon, the schools must update their textbooks, posters, Styrofoam-balls-hanging-on-strings dioramas and whatnot. And needless to say, this costs money, i.e., the taxpayers' money. This means that you have to pay the government more money due to the existence of a rock millions of miles away.

And it doesn't end there. Are you already sick of generic, big-budget alien movies like Men in Black, Aliens, and Man on the Moon? If not, then I'm sure that It Came from the Planet S/1999 J1 will change your mind. Now, S/1999 J1 may not be the final name, and it may not really be a planet, but you get the idea. Plus, this burdens our science fiction writers to come up with a new alien race with new motivations and new patterns of forehead-wrinkles.

One of the many cheesey alien movies, the likes of which will be encouraged if we let this moon business continue

Are you still not convinced? Then I'm sure that you'll be enraged to hear that these astronomers have these "telescopes"-really expensive eyeglasses the size of houses that allow them to see really far in the distance-and are keeping them all to themselves so they can watch rocks floating around in the sky. If scientists can use these telescopes to locate a rock three miles in diameter located millions of miles away, then surely we can use them as a defense system to detect enemy planes, missiles and whatnot, or to spy on terrorists.

If you are as appalled as I am, then please write your representatives in Washington to make sure that this rock and other like it do not pass to become moons. In fact, I don't think that it is necessary at all to name every rock floating around in space. This is a democracy; let yourselves be heard, and have these astronomers know that we won't take it anymore. I'd like to know how this astronomy thing ever got started. The world certainly does not need another moon.

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