Take a guess at how many fabulous moons or natural satellites we have floating about in our glorious and busy little solar system!
I bet the number you are thinking is an undershoot because man, are there a sheer number of moons!
Naturally we have the 8 planets, and 3 dwarf planets (Pluto, Ceres and Eris who remain beef in my heart) as the largest celestial bodies, so how many moons betwixt?
If you said 30, then, well, unfortunately no. Uranus alone has 28 and where some of the best names occur: Umbriel, Oberon and Puck are spinning up there like an intergalactic hockey team.
If you said 100, then, well, unfortunately no. Jupiter has 95 moons on its own! Ganymede, Io and Europa are as beefy as our own Luna body!
If you said 200, then, well, unfortunately no. If you add all planets big and dwarf, excluding the heavenly ringed Saturn, you would have about 150, even the gorgeous Pluto has 5!
If you bring Saturn in, if you request that our second largest, and possibly most majestic of space faring spheres, into the equation, then Saturn laughs at you with great aplomb.
Saturn out there with a confirmed 274 Moons loving life, loving the mythical grand audience of such spirits as Thethys, Titan, Dione, Hyperion, Iapetus and Rhea and I am giddy! Giddy that we have 428 extra balls of cool space dust floating around us, and I long, I long to be a space explorer, touching down on all of those inviting locales.