Venus ate its moon: How Earth's 'twin' could have swallowed a rocky satellite

Scientists have long speculated why Venus, with a size, mass and structure similar to Earth's, doesn't have a moon. New UC Riverside research shows that our hungry twin likely swallowed it. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal, shows that neither theory fits. "My study shows Venus didn't require a catastrophe to arrive at what we can see today," said UCR astrophysicist and lead author Stephen Kane. "It turns out the gravity of the planet itself combined with the rate at which it spins naturally caused the moon to collapse on top of it." Scientists can precisely measure the distance between Earth and the moon because NASA's Apollo 11 landing left mirrors there. "We know that the moon is slowly moving away from the planet, at a rate of around four centimeters (1.6 inches) per year," Kane said. This distancing, Kane said, is happening because Earth completes a relatively fast rotation every 24 hours. The energy from this spinning gets transferred to the moon, causing it to move away.

In most simulations, the result was the same: The moon crashed into Venus. The more massive the moon, the faster it crashed. "When I made this discovery, I was shocked," Kane said. "I thought surely the broad range of scenarios I was exploring would lead to a variety of results. But it all went pretty much in the same direction."

The finding does not prove that Venus once had a moon. Kane believes it may have, but whether one ever formed remains an open question. The study does show that if Venus had a moon, it could not have continued existing indefinitely. Finding physical evidence of such a collision would be difficult. Roughly 80% of Venus' surface is of a similar age, evidence of a major resurfacing event about a billion years ago that erased much of the planet's earlier geological history. Evidence could instead lie beneath the surface.

Such a collision could also help scientists understand another longstanding mystery about Venus: whether Earth's nearest planetary neighbor was ever capable of hosting life. A moon crashing into Venus would have transferred enormous energy and angular momentum to the planet, potentially changing its rotation, geology and climate. If Venus once had oceans or other conditions favorable to life, such an impact could have altered the course of the planet's evolution.

Kane's findings suggest that even planets capable of forming moons may not be able to keep them. Slowly rotating worlds could send their moons spiraling toward their surfaces, dramatically changing the planets in the process. "When people think about Earth twins around other stars, one question they ask is, 'Does it have a moon?'" Kane said. "My study shows a disturbing scenario for many of those cases. If these planets don't rotate fast enough, the moon will crash to the surface, and that would change the course of history for those planets."

AI-generated summary of the original article — see the source for the full story.