Venus likely swallowed its own moon, study finds
A University of California, Riverside investigation concludes that Venus most likely consumed a moon of its own. Astrophysicist Stephen Kane created computer models that evaluated two long‑standing ideas , a violent collision or the absence of a moon‑forming event , and found that neither matches the observations. “My study shows Venus did not require a catastrophe to arrive at what we can see today,” Kane explained. The planet’s own gravity combined with its slow 243‑day rotation would have drawn a moon inward until it merged with Venus, the opposite of Earth’s moon, which drifts away by roughly four centimeters per year as Earth spins once every 24 hours. The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal.
The result provides a physics‑based answer to a persistent question about why Earth’s twin lacks a rocky satellite, using data and models that tie directly to observed planetary dynamics.
Source: Venus ate its moon (news.ucr.edu).
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