Don’t ask, don’t tell about our Selene/moon / by Brad Guth

On Nov 10, 9:15 am, "Painius" wrote:
"BradGuth" wrote in message...

...



On Nov 10, 1:07 am, "Painius" wrote:
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
thdakotatelephone...
Painius wrote:

There is every reason to believe that planet Venus is
in the slow process of tidal locking to the Sun.

Odd, because Mercury - far closer to the sun, and of far lower mass
than
Venus - isn't tidally locked to it as far as its axial rotation period
goes.

Pat

No, not yet, but it almost is. And for many years
astronomers believed that Mercury *was already*
tidal-locked to the Sun!

And now they think that Mercury is locked in a
ratio other than 1:1, when in reality, Mercury's
rotation will continue to slowly be altered, and
perhaps oscillate into retrograde like Venus has.
And then sometime in the future, Mercury will be
as locked to the Sun as planet Selene (the Moon)
is locked to the Earth!

As I said, eventually everything in the universe gets tidal locked to
something. However, in the mean time of the following multi hundred
billions of years, of seeing another planet tidal locking to yet
another planet, and each of which orbiting the same solar mass in
entirely different periods is going to be extremely unlikely, if ever
the case.

~ BG

Your are wise beyond your ears!

And I have somewhat funny ears, along with less hair for covering them
up. At least I do not have tunnel hearing or any related miswired
functionality to deal with.

~ BG

On Nov 10, 9:44 am, "Painius" wrote:
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message

dakotatelephone...



Painius wrote:
Pat surmised...

Odd, because Mercury - far closer to the sun, and of far lower mass than
Venus - isn't tidally locked to it as far as its axial rotation period
goes.

No, not yet, but it almost is. And for many years
astronomers believed that Mercury *was already*
tidal-locked to the Sun!

You are missing something here; if Venus is heading toward tidal lock
with the Sun, then Mercury should have done that billions of years ago.
The fact that it hasn't indicates that slight though it is, the influence
on Venus' rotational period due to the gravitational tidal influence of
the Earth/Moon system has modified its rotational period over billions of
years in a classic three body problem with the Moon thrown in as a fourth
body.
This also shows that both Venus and the Earth/Moon system have been fairly
stable orbits for quite some time so that such a resonance could develop.

And now they think that Mercury is locked in a
ratio other than 1:1, when in reality, Mercury's
rotation will continue to slowly be altered, and
perhaps oscillate into retrograde like Venus has.

How? Unlike a planet, which has slight differences in its mass disposition
around its axis of rotation, the Sun is a gaseous/fluid object whose
center of mass varies point-to-point on a monthly basis, and is kept
pretty much centered by its huge gravity field.
So you don't get consistent tidal effects even out at Mercury's orbit.
The closest analogy to the Sun and its planets would be Jupiter's moon
system, but even with its deep gaseous outer atmosphere, Jupiter does have
a solid core of metallic hydrogen, plus the tidal interactions of its
moons.

Pat

You may have answered your own question, Pat. With
the Sun's gargantuan mass of gas and plasma, but not
solid matter, the tidal-locking effect takes much longer.
And as oc points out, the tidal-locking may also depend
upon the asymmetry of the elements and compounds
within the surfaces of the planets. Couldn't the Sun's
inconsistent tidal effects produce increased "lumpiness"
of the innards of Mercury and Venus over millions of
millennia?

The innards of Venus could be as great as 99.5% fluid.

The innards of Earth are being kept at least 98.5% fluid to the very
iron or thorium core that's likely fluid, and being continually
modulated by the 2e20 N/s related to our Selene/moon (binary
planetoid) that's big, massive and rather nearby as it zooms around
us.

~ BG

"BradGuth" wrote in message...
...
On Nov 10, 9:09 am, "Painius" wrote:
"BradGuth" wrote in message...
...

Why 19 months and not 1900 or 500 months or perhaps 5 months or 19
hours?

How many other planets in the universe have that kind of special
relationship to another given planet?

I take it that you'd do rather poorly in Las Vegas.

Probably.

Earth and Venus are far too far apart and small in size
to have any significant tidal effect on each other. And
yet, even some astronomers agree with you and say
that it just might be some weird kind of tidal-locking.

I say "BUNK". Venus is slowly but surely becoming
tidal locked to the Sun. This and this alone accounts
for its retrograde spin and the coincidental 19-month,
nearly-but-not-quite-synchronous "same face toward
Earth" puzzle.

Then forever it's Painius bunk for all it's worth, and otherwise screw
the regular laws of physics and banish or exclude best available
science until hell freezes over. Sounds very faith-based republican
status quo of yourself, but what do I know.

~ BG

There's a sad ring of truth to what you say, Brad.
Until Solar System astronomers study the rotation
rates of planets Venus and Mercury more closely
to see if the rates are slowly changing, then the
idea of their tidal-locking to the Sun will remain
conjecture subject to skepticism.

happy days and...
starry starry nights!

--
Indelibly yours,
Paine Ellsworth

P.S.: "The cause is hidden. The effect is visible to all."
Ovid

P.P.S.: http://yummycake.secretsgolden.com
http://garden-of-ebooks.blogspot.com
http://painellsworth.net

On Nov 11, 1:19 am, "Painius" wrote:
"BradGuth" wrote in message...

...



On Nov 10, 9:09 am, "Painius" wrote:
"BradGuth" wrote in message...
...

Why 19 months and not 1900 or 500 months or perhaps 5 months or 19
hours?

How many other planets in the universe have that kind of special
relationship to another given planet?

I take it that you'd do rather poorly in Las Vegas.

Probably.

Earth and Venus are far too far apart and small in size
to have any significant tidal effect on each other. And
yet, even some astronomers agree with you and say
that it just might be some weird kind of tidal-locking.

I say "BUNK". Venus is slowly but surely becoming
tidal locked to the Sun. This and this alone accounts
for its retrograde spin and the coincidental 19-month,
nearly-but-not-quite-synchronous "same face toward
Earth" puzzle.

Then forever it's Painius bunk for all it's worth, and otherwise screw
the regular laws of physics and banish or exclude best available
science until hell freezes over. Sounds very faith-based republican
status quo of yourself, but what do I know.

~ BG

There's a sad ring of truth to what you say, Brad.
Until Solar System astronomers study the rotation
rates of planets Venus and Mercury more closely
to see if the rates are slowly changing, then the
idea of their tidal-locking to the Sun will remain
conjecture subject to skepticism.

Too bad we still do not have a Selene/moon L1 or even a Venus L2
platform of instruments. Perhaps China or India will fix that.

Meanwhile, we should be outsourcing as much as possible because, we're
running ourselves out of time and resources, and it seems we never did
have "the right stuff" worth of necessary fly-by-rocket talent to
start with.

Perhaps the "one way mission to our moon" isn't all that daunting or
as lethal as some of us might care to think (myself included).

Too bad the JAXA/Selene mission has gotten so downright pathetic and
moderated to death.

How much is our DARPA and NASA going to have to moderate over the ISRO
CHANDRAYAAN mission(s)?

~ BG