Thread: Gas Moons

A few months ago, when my son was two I asked him "what's jupiter?", expecting the answer Fireman Sam's fire engine. I was taken aback when he said "It's a kind of moon".

It got me thinking is it possible to have a gas moon, or would it be too massive, requiring a super-massive planet to orbit and a super-super massive star to orbit?

Long term, I'd (purely) guess that a gaseous moon wouldn't have enough mass to withstand the planet's gravitation and hold together, and also the bombardment by objects (asteroids, etc) would disrupt it (ie, impart velocities) and cause the planet to attract/capture the fragments. So, a gaseous body would end up in the planet's atmosphere/ocean.