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Moons of our Solar System
Moons of our Solar System

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2.10 Moon Trumps

Fancy a hand of cards? Have a go at our Moon Trumps game.

We’ve placed the same five attributes (radius, density, orbital period, orbital radius, potential for life) on cards for a number of different moons from throughout the Solar System. You win a turn by choosing an attribute that has a higher value than on the card held by your opponent, except for orbital period where the fastest orbit (lowest orbital period) wins. You can choose how smart the computer is. Normally whoever wins a turn plays first in the next turn, but you can give yourself an extra advantage by forcing the computer to always play second.

You will need to take an ‘educated guess’ from time to time, and we hope this will improve your feel for the nature and diversity of our Solar System’s moons. When you’ve had enough, move on to meet some small moons in more detail. You can come back any time you like and try to beat the computer as your knowledge grows.

You can play Moon Trumps online any time or pick up your own pack of Moon Trump cards on OpenLearn. [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] If you experience any display issues with the exercise below, try this version instead.