mcc… thanks, Google. I guess
martin_fff@mcc don't know if this is correct but at least it sussed the context...
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=current+distance+from+europa+to+titan
@martin_fff I wasn't really asking the right question anyway, I was trying to get a distance between two Jovian moons and forgot Titan was Saturnine
@mcc ah, anyways try https://www.wolframalpha.com
@mcc I's guessing also Google thinks/knows you're in T.Dot?
Bodhipaksa@mcc @martin_fff I'd have thought that the distance between two Jovian moons would change moment by moment since they're both in orbit. Or did you mean the distance between their orbits?
@bodhipaksa @martin_fff Yes, or their distance at its shortest point (basically the same thing).
@mcc @martin_fff Do you mind if I ask why you wanted to know? (It’s an interesting question!)
@bodhipaksa @martin_fff I was earlier asking what it would take to make a GPS that covers the solar system https://mastodon.social/@mcc/110674497444151740
Someone proposed an approach but said it would only give a precision of 3500 miles. I was trying to get a sense of how far apart the moons of Jupiter or Saturn are to see how much precision you'd need in the worst case to at least determine the nearest astronomical body
(Possibly ignoring the degenerate case of the asteroid belt)
@mcc @bodhipaksa there's already astronavigation... I take it you're writing some speculative fiction
Jon@mcc @bodhipaksa @martin_fff I was thinking about Janus and Epithemus, co-orbiting moons of Saturn, but they apparently never approach closer than 10,000 km https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimetheus_(moon)#Orbit . IIRC there are also some co-orbiting objects inside the ring system.
@mcc @martin_fff BTW, this website gives the moons' mean orbital distances from Jupiter, so you can do some basic arithmetic to find out.
https://web.pa.msu.edu/people/horvatin/Astronomy_Facts/planet_pages/Jupiters_moons.htm
@bodhipaksa @mcc Titan is a Saturnine moon, Europa is a Jovian...
@martin_fff @mcc Yes, @mcc said that above. What she meant to look for was the distance between two Jovian moons.
@bodhipaksa @mcc that's why I asked Wolfram for current position, as they're moons around different planets...