Venus gains a moon
- Thread starter Commissar
- Start date
Yes it is, but the goldilocks edges are ( quite ) disputed anyway ...
The problem with this is that the butterflies could be planerary sized then ...
Well, Venus MK I propbaly did get smacked by a pretty massive planet. It is one of the reasons cited for its retro grade rotation IIRC. The lack of moon forming may of had a lot to do with the angle of impact. Or a moon may of formed but was too close and wound up spiraling in like Triton will in the distant futrure. What gets me is when astronomers describe the body that hit Earth MK I as a proto-planet. And then say the body was the size of Mars. Does that mean Mars is a protoplanet? I suspect as the palnets began to get closer and closer to the size they are today mega collosions happened more than we think. I mean look at the size of the basin in the northern hemisphere of Mars. And the body that probably get hit the hardest and held together is Mimas
It's unclear, but it probably won't mean much.
Most of the bad things about Venus go back to the runaway greenhouse effect. This caused the oceans to boil, eliminated the carbon cycle and allowed a thick CO2 atmosphere to form, caused plate tectonics to fail (water is needed for lubrication), and probably is the reason for a lack of a magnetic field.
It's thought the moon stabilizes the axial tilt of the Earth, stopping the poles from suddenly shifting with massive climactic disruption. It's also slowed down the Earth's rotation through time, although it's dubious if this matters. Finally, tides certainly help life. If they didn't help with the initial evolution of life, they certainly provided a convenient place for it to begin to become adapted to dry land.
None of this would help Venus however. If a moon was in a shorter orbit than a Venusian day (likely) it should slowly speed up the rotation of the planet. It probably won't make a huge difference however - the sun will have swelled into a red giant long before the Earth has a month-long day.
So while this sort of planetary science is in its infancy, it's hard to see this alone resulting in an inhabitable moon.
Most of the bad things about Venus go back to the runaway greenhouse effect. This caused the oceans to boil, eliminated the carbon cycle and allowed a thick CO2 atmosphere to form, caused plate tectonics to fail (water is needed for lubrication), and probably is the reason for a lack of a magnetic field.
It's thought the moon stabilizes the axial tilt of the Earth, stopping the poles from suddenly shifting with massive climactic disruption. It's also slowed down the Earth's rotation through time, although it's dubious if this matters. Finally, tides certainly help life. If they didn't help with the initial evolution of life, they certainly provided a convenient place for it to begin to become adapted to dry land.
None of this would help Venus however. If a moon was in a shorter orbit than a Venusian day (likely) it should slowly speed up the rotation of the planet. It probably won't make a huge difference however - the sun will have swelled into a red giant long before the Earth has a month-long day.
So while this sort of planetary science is in its infancy, it's hard to see this alone resulting in an inhabitable moon.
I remember at one point, they used to think that the Earth's Moon was instrumental in preventing the Earth from having a Venus like atmosphere, skimming the excess atmosphere off of the Earth. I believe Larry Niven used this as a point in some of his science fiction. However, I think this theory was later disproved, or at least thought less likely.
Then again, I can't say I've studied the field at all.
Then again, I can't say I've studied the field at all.
Moon ain't all it takes
You need much more than a moon to help stabilize life on a planet
What Venus has that is a positive for it's life:
A Moon
Large amounts of Water (The Sulphuric Acid clouds are partly water)
The Late Heavy bombardment (?)
High Carbon Dioxide Levels in Early history
What Venus needs to make it anything Earth like:
Plate Tectonics*
A Snowball Earth Event
Due to it's proximity to the Sun, it will likely never experience that glaciation event even once. Hence, unless Humans do bring life with them, Metazoans are unlikely.
The Heat + Life - Plate Tectonics = An Extremely rapid case of Global Warming, likely evaporating away the oceans an leading to the demise of life on Venus.
But before it's final Horrah, the scum you find at the bottom of the Black sea would probably dominate, creating an atmosphere of Hydrogen Sulfide and Methane. Lethal to many if not all animals on Earth.
Venus with a moon wouldn't be to different than the one of today, with Sulphuric Acid clouds, an astounding tidal bulge made from surface Lava and the Atmosphere, and a 'normal' orbit.
*Plate Tectonics can also inhibit the evolution of life.
You need much more than a moon to help stabilize life on a planet
What Venus has that is a positive for it's life:
A Moon
Large amounts of Water (The Sulphuric Acid clouds are partly water)
The Late Heavy bombardment (?)
High Carbon Dioxide Levels in Early history
What Venus needs to make it anything Earth like:
Plate Tectonics*
A Snowball Earth Event
Due to it's proximity to the Sun, it will likely never experience that glaciation event even once. Hence, unless Humans do bring life with them, Metazoans are unlikely.
The Heat + Life - Plate Tectonics = An Extremely rapid case of Global Warming, likely evaporating away the oceans an leading to the demise of life on Venus.
But before it's final Horrah, the scum you find at the bottom of the Black sea would probably dominate, creating an atmosphere of Hydrogen Sulfide and Methane. Lethal to many if not all animals on Earth.
Venus with a moon wouldn't be to different than the one of today, with Sulphuric Acid clouds, an astounding tidal bulge made from surface Lava and the Atmosphere, and a 'normal' orbit.
*Plate Tectonics can also inhibit the evolution of life.
But a moon can be landed upon...
...Masses of solar power and a planetary atmosphere you can descend into to gather chemicals. A moon with a silicate and metal surface would also be useful for mass-driver supply to lunar orbit.
Think big!
...Masses of solar power and a planetary atmosphere you can descend into to gather chemicals. A moon with a silicate and metal surface would also be useful for mass-driver supply to lunar orbit.
Think big!
I don't really see how the LHB, per se, is a positive for life...also, Venus really doesn't have much water. Clouds are a terrible reservoir--look at Earth, 99.999% of our water supply is in non-airborne sources. Enough, perhaps, to support life on Venus (and on Earth), if some of the more far-out theories of certain people are correct, but not enough to give it "lots" of water.
Snowball Earth is still controversial...and adding a lot of water would (IIRC) help out a lot with getting plate tectonics started. Anyways, your scenario with the very rapid global warming is thought to be reasonably similar to what actually happened, so.
What I heard is that Venus got so hot that essentially all of its water fractured into hydrogen and oxygen, the former of which blew away.
If Venus had a moon proportionate to Earth and we switched Mars and Venus in orbit we'd probably have a life supporting semi Earthlike planet (probably quite cold even if it did have a thick atmosphere).
Right now we only have Earth as an example of a life bearing planet so until we can pinpoint another to compare everything is just speculation...
Right now we only have Earth as an example of a life bearing planet so until we can pinpoint another to compare everything is just speculation...
It's all interconnected. Basically, what seems to have happened is this.
1. Oceans boiled due to runaway greenhouse.
2. Water cooked out of crust.
3. Plate tectonics shut down due to lack of water lubrication.
4. Magnetic field shuts down due to lack of convection within planet.
5. Steam drifts into upper atmosphere. With no magnetic field, radiation breaks the water into its constituent parts. The hydrogen escapes, and the free oxygen reacts with various chemicals on the surface.
Although the theory that comets brought Earth all it's water, they did bring amino acids are possibly things as complex as Sugars was disproved. And the fracturing of the early earth's crust let water deep underground, and let early life evolve away from the harsh surface.
I admit Snowball Earth is controversial at best, but Metazoans did arise shortly after the last event.
And the hypothesis was based on what happened in the Permian Era.
Last edited:
If that moon is visible from Earth by the unaided eye, it should have quite the impact.
It pretty much proof positive that not everything in the Universe orbits around Earth.
It pretty much proof positive that not everything in the Universe orbits around Earth.
Cook
Banned
Tidal decay from Venus and the Sun would result in it colliding with Venus well before the present.
T.Pratchett used this concept in the novel Strata, leading to earlier/more advanced space travel technology. Also, Remus instead of Romulus founds the Empire, but I don't remember if this was related to the Venusian moon.
A moon the size of our moon would be visual to the eye. and would likely be the 3rd brightest object in the night sky. Also it would be obviously be orbiting Venus (swinging from side to side in the sky).
Isaac Asimov wrote a series of articles on the impact to human development (collected in the "Tragdy of the Moon"). Note, yes he hand waved evolve of life on a lunar tideless Earth, to the discuss on the impact us.