On 06/08/2011 10:00 AM, dlzc wrote:
Also note the similarity of the Moon's density to Jupiter's moons (no
doubt the makeup is wrong, still...). And a giant like that could
certainly assist in boosting for capture, directing Theia to collision
in the first place, or even creating a lobe in a rapdily spinning
Earth that later became the Moon.

Don't know if Jupiter could create such a lobe in the Earth, unless the
Earth were in orbit around Jupiter. Jupiter's own current moons don't
show signs of such an exaggerated tidal bulge amongst any of them,
unless Jupiter's ring was once one of its moons.

Recall too that the Sun-Jupiter barycenter is outside the Sun now, but
would not be (I think) were it closer. But there would still be holy
heck raised in the inner solar system.

At the very least, most of the inner solar system must have been much
closer in to the star than they are now. Everything must've shifted
outwards when Jupiter and Saturn shifted outwards. Uranus is expected to
have been a big pinball between Jupiter and Saturn.

Yousuf Khan