Venus is truly an odd twin of Earth . Despite its similar sizing , the satellite has such athick , hotatmospherethat it would crush you andcook youif you were to stand on its surface . And the space curiosity do n’t end there . As all the other satellite spin anticlockwise on their Axis , Venus spins clockwise . It ’s like it is upside down compare to the other major players in the Solar System . The cause is indecipherable , but a fresh proposition sees Venus capturing and then destroying a moon .
Earth is also affected by its own Moon . The Moon has stabilized andslowed downthe major planet ’s rotation . In the case of Venus , this new , hypothetical moonlight did even more than that . Researchers Valeri Makarov at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington DC , and Alexey Goldin at Teza Technologies in Chicago , desire us to cast our eye back to near thebeginning of the Solar System . It was a time when the rocky planets had assemble most of their deal , but there were still plenty of construct blocks hanging about .
From these , a planetesimal could have been captured by Venus . The research brace looked at 100 of M of simulation and find scenario that they deem both potential , and with the power to explain the attribute of Venus today . First of all , the moonlight gaining control would have been retrograde . This means that was live on around Venus in the diametrical commission . The assumption is that Venus at that point was spin out in the samedirectionas the other planets .
The motion of this moonshine would have created tides that slowed down Venus ’s spin , as long as the moon could stick by around for over 10,000 age . This is easier aver than done . Holding on to a lunar month , it would have been difficult for Venus to be so close to the Sun . And this is true whether it captured one or whether it formed from a major wallop , likeour own Moon . The captured lunation in the scenario was kept thanks to the presence of material around Venus that dispatch orbital energy . But this fare at a cost .
The frequent collision , the tides , and the orbital motion eventually bring the moon too close to the planet . The gravitational attraction of Venus break the moonshine aside , and its broken stiff eventually fell down on the world below .
The squad called the moon Neith . Giovanni Cassini , the discoverer of Titan and the rings of Saturn , is consider to have seen such a moon around Venus , and for a few centuries mass reported the presence of this hypothetical objective . It ’s probable they were meet stars that had serendipitously look near the planet .
The scenario is not the only one that set out to explain why Venus orbit the style it does : abackward solar day , from our tip of sentiment , and extremely lento . It takes about243 Earth daysfor Venus to do a unmarried pirouette on its axis . Other suggestions for the weird spin relate to gravitative interactions with the Sun , the effect of its boneheaded atmosphere , and a major impact , similar to the one that forcedUranusto arena on its side .
The survey is published in the journalUniverse .
[ H / T : New Scientist ]
