Donnie Drayden, age ll,. of Shreveport, La., for his question:

 How many of the planets have moons?

Three hundred and fifty years ago astronomers assumed that only one moon existed in the entire universe. The only one near enough for human eyes to see, of course, was the earth's satellite. Now We know that five more of our planets have moons and most likely there are more beyond our solar system.

In the winter of l609, Galileo spied the heavens through his telescope and beheld wonders that were new to mankind. His observations proved that human eyes could be fooled by the heavens, but for a generation or ho most people refused to believe him. Better telescopes and other astronomical instruments were made and mankind learned that his eyes see only a mere fraction of the wondrous heavens.

Without a telescope our eyes can see only one moon, the handsome satellite of our own earth. Galileo spotted four moons in orbit around Jupiter  and more surprises followed. The present count of moons in our solar system is l69. Astronomers with the use of planetary spacecraft have spotted, clocked and named 63 moons belonging to giant Jupiter and 59 belonging to Saturn in orbit outside the dazzling rings.

We now  know that Uranus has 27 moons and Neptune has l3. Our neighbor Mars is orbited by two small and very interesting satellites. Seven of the sun's nine planets have moons and six of them have more than one. So far no moons have been spotted around Mercury and Venus. In the l6th century, astronomers reported a moon of Venus. The golden planet may have captured and then lost a straying asteroid, but if so, it is no longer there. In l9l0, a tenth satellite of Saturn was reported, but the discovery was later proven by planetary spacecraft which  has to date found 59 bodies orbiting the planet.

Before we could  sent spacecraft to fly near the planet the smaller moons of the distant planets were hard to spot even with our beat telescopes and more may be added to our list. We will not likely find satellites for Mercury or Venus.

The moons of the solar system come in assorted sizes, and most of them are airless bodies, barren and bare like tht earth's satellite. Only one has an atmosphere. It is Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and the largest moon of the solar system. Astronomers suspect that most stars have planets and we know that most of our planets have moons, so it is reasonable to suppose that the number of moons in the galaxy is astronomical.