Lo and behold: Venus MAY Have had a Moon
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.sc...d7b86593b27332
(beginning of topic)
From: TeaTime / Date: Wed, Nov 8 2006 6:41 pm
Groups: uk.sci.astronomy
Did Venus once have a moon? A talking point with some interesting
references:
http://skytonight.com/news/4353026.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...6-152C-8A66834...
http://www.solarviews.com/eng/hypothet.htm#neith
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From: Jonathan Silverlight / Date: Sun, Nov 12 2006 3:26 pm
Isn't there some question as to whether Venus owes its rotation to one
impact, let alone two? The Wikipedia page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus links to a paper in Icarus saying
tidal slowing of the atmosphere may have produced its current state
http://www.imcce.fr/Equipes/ASD/preprints/prep.2002/venus1.2002.pdf
The moons of Mars didn't form by collision - I don't think anyone has a
sensible theory for them :-)
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From: TeaTime / Date: Mon, Nov 13 2006 5:34 am
Yes, certainly a possibility, although popular theories for Venus do
suggest
a catastrophic collision which put its axis/rotation in the retrograde.
Tidal action of the Earth on Venus, acting steadily for billennia, then
established the 3:2 spin-orbit resonance. Every 2 earth years, the exact
same 'side' of the Venusian surface faces Earth. So maybe there is some
sub-surface mass concentration on this area of Venus that the Earth
pulls on
to create the tidal lock ... a mascon created by the collision perhaps?
Hopefully a lot more data will be forthcoming shortly.
http://www.imcce.fr/Equipes/ASD/preprints/prep.2002/venus1.2002.pdf
The moons of Mars didn't form by collision - I don't think anyone has a
sensible theory for them :-)
They are ugly little blighters, aren't they. At first glance, one sees
captured asteroids (or even comets) but apparently there is much
scientific
opinion to the contrary. Glad we don't have a chunk of rock like Phobos
orbiting the earth at just a few thousand miles up.
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(current end of topic)
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Oops! Mars collected asteroids? Seems that we've heard this valid
argument before, although apparently those very same pesky laws of
physics work entirely different on behalf of Mars obtaining such moons,
as opposed to Earth which apparently can't possibly muster whatever
hocus-pocus conditional physics it takes for doing the same.
Obviously our public/Caltech supercomputers and of those well funded
individuals are quite available for drafting out this sort of an effort,
and it gets rather well published to boot. I wonder what's the silly
problem in running off a few alternatives on behalf of Earth's moon,
just to honestly see what happens.
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Brad Guth
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