Earth-Like Extrasolar Planet?

On Wed, 15 Jun 2005 22:39:37 +0000 (UTC), (James Nicoll)
wrote:

In article ,
Kathy Rages wrote:
In article ,
Pat Flannery wrote:

There sure shouldn't be any lack of volcanic activity with tidal forces
from that close of an orbit around its sun acting upon it

Not if it's tide-locked in a circular orbit. You only get tidal heating if
there are *varying* tidal forces. Io wouldn't be anything spectacular if it
were the only Galilean satellite; interactions with the other big moons
(mostly Europa) force its orbit around Jupiter to remain slightly elliptical
despite all the obvious tidal dissipation it's undergoing.

Of course, there are two other, larger planets in this system, with which
the new one is interacting strongly enough to produce a detectable signal in
the Doppler shift, so its orbit may be getting pumped in a manner similar to
Io's.

A little botecing says that the closer gas giant exerts tidal
forces on the terrestrial planet about 1/4 the lunar tidal forces on
Earth and the outer gas giant exterts tidal forces that are about 1/9th
the Lunar tidal forces on Earth. Not bad.

"botecing"? Oh, yes; you refer to BOTEC -- back-of-the-envelope
calculations.