Although the illustration of the Abodean planetary system in Plate 14 of The Wolfrider's Guide to the World of Elfquest shows Daughter Moon closer to the planet Abode than Mother Moon, there is no indication of what the moons' orbits around Abode look like. When I discussed the moons last (in Sendings #9) I assumed that the orbits are concentric near-circles, as shown in Figure 1. Thus, Daughter Moon would always be closer to Abode than Mother Moon, and although Daughter Moon might pass in front of Mother Moon as seen from the planet's surface, it could never slip behind it.
Do the pages of Elfquest actually bear out this assumption? A first casual perusal seems to bear this out. I started keeping track of all the places in the comic and anywhere else where one moon was shown in front of the other. I am keeping an updated list on this page. Most of the time (16 times!), the smaller moon was in front. However, there ARE several instances (5 times) in which the larger moon is shown to be in front.
There are two ways, astronomically speaking, that we could see either moon be in front by turns. First, the orbits of the two moons could overlap (see Figure 2). Then sometimes one moon would be in front, and sometimes the other. Offhand, I'm skeptical - there are probably cases in our own solar system where moons' orbits overlap, but they are little, captured-asteroid-type moons of gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn. The lovely, spherical, cratered moons of Abode look like stable moons that developed when the planetary system was born. I would not have expected them to have orbits irregular enough to overlap.
Alternately, the smaller moon may not be a moon of Abode at all, but be a "satellite
of a satellite" - that is, Daughter Moon might actually orbit Mother Moon
(see Figure 3).
I'm even MORE skeptical about this possibility. There is no case in our own solar system in which a satellite of a planet has its own satellite. Still, I don't think the physics rules it out. What DOES rule it out, however, is an element of the Elfquest story: in Abode's technologically advanced time period, the Skyward have established a secret base "on the dark side of Daughter Moon - away from prying eyes" (Elfquest: Jink! issue #4, page 11, reprinted in the Reader's Collection Book 14: Jink!). For a moon which does not rotate relative to its primary (the body it orbits around), the "dark side" is the side that always faces away from the primary. The dark side is impossible to see from the primary, like the dark side of our own Moon is impossible to see from Earth. The fact that the base is secret from the inhabitants of Abode tells us that Daughter Moon's primary is, indeed, Abode itself, not Mother Moon. If Daughter Moon orbited around Mother Moon, the "dark side" would be pointed right at Abode's surface each time Daughter Moon was between Mother Moon and Abode! So Figure 3 cannot be correct.
What about those five instances I've seen when Mother Moon is shown to be in front? Two of them, I believe, MUST be erroneous, because they are sequences within the comic with one moon in front at one moment, then the other moon in front later in the night! This happens in Elfquest: Blood of Ten Chiefs, issue #13, and in the "Rogue's Curse" story in Elfquest Vol 2 issue #1 (note especially pages 38 and 45; this story also appears in the Reader's Collection Book 9: Rogue's Curse). The Blood of Ten Chiefs story looks like just a "typo" in the inking process - one panel shows the larger moon in front, but the rest of the panels consistently show the smaller moon in front. * "Rogue's Curse" is another story: the moons are bouncing around the sky like overfilled helium balloons. This is impossible, unless Daughter Moon orbited around Mother Moon and completed its orbit in less than a day. But we've already ruled that out from other evidence.
My conclusion? I still believe in the orderly orbits of Figure 1. Two of the five instances that show Mother Moon in front of Daughter Moon have just been proved (to my own satisfaction, anyway) to be in error. I think the other three are artistic slip-ups as well. We won't know for sure until we hear from Poughkeepsie - perhaps there will be an updated version of the Abodean planetary system guide, showing the moons' orbits. [Note to Richard: Hint, hint! <g>] But I cite one final piece of circumstantial evidence: Daughter Moon is in front of Mother Moon in all of the instances drawn by Elfmom herself, Wendy Pini.
References:
Another moon "typo" I just ran across appears in Hidden Years #20 (reprinted as the last chapter in the Reader's Collection Book 11: Legacy). The entire issue takes place in a single evening. In the beginning both moons are shown full. In the middle, they are both crescents! At the end, they're back to full again! Oooops! :-)
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linda_tam@alumni.hmc.edu
Last modified on March 9, 2003
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