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Posted on 12/04/2009 11:32:02 PM PST by SunkenCiv
It spins sideways on the wrong axis too.
I have always wanted to write a book called “From Mianus to Uranus: A Connecticut Yankeee Explores the Solar System.”
Seriously, a moon is hardly an appropriate way to deal with Uranis. And I don’t care which way the author tilts.
>> William Ward at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado finds the theory plausible but points out there is no evidence for the extra moon other than the effect Boué and Laskar suggest it has had on Uranus’s orientation. <<
Pluto.
But Ward, if Uranis has something wierd about its orientation, I would seriously avoid looking for a moon.
The moon should be named Dingleberry.
Naw, there’s enough Salacia’s jokes about Uranis as it is, without finding Uranis a hubby. Unless there’s an attraction between Uranis and Neptune.
Sorry, but how often do you get to make a pun with a word like “salacious”?
I say we call it Planet Gore, after the 1st sent inhabitant.
Or Krakamiassia?
Wouldn’t it be cool to watch a time-lapse movie of all this?
Just a thought, but posting a headline like this and asking people to hold back is like handing her the whip and saying “Don’t hurt me”.
“So he ate each of his children as they were born”
There’s a painting by Reubens that depicts him eating his children. I recently downloaded a series of classical myths to iTunes which is great but I’m not at the PC upon which I have them.
U got what?
Where’s Moe Howard when I really need him?
The late Tom Van Flandern eventually attributed it to his Exploding Planet, some way or other, let’s see if that’s still online... hmm, not what I was looking for:
http://www.metaresearch.org/solar%20system/origins/original-solar-system.asp
[snip] Jupiter and Uranus have the most regular and apparently undisturbed large satellite systems: circular and co-planar orbits, orbit-synchronized spins, with orbital periods each roughly double that of the next moon in. Correspondingly, their patterns contain no exceptions to the requirements of the fission theory. Neptune, of course, has a highly disrupted satellite system. But the close resemblance between Pluto and Triton has been noted by many astronomers. [end snip]
(that is of course partly incorrect, insofar as the moons of Jupiter are MOSTLY the result of capture, based on their retrograde orbits; TVF refers here to )
Thanks GCC Catholic and Nateman.
It would!
The tilt of the Uranian axis would have to be from either some gradual evo of its orbit, or from an impact; if it had been from an encounter with a large body going by (and Uranus is 15 times the mass of the Earth, so, it would have to be a whopper) the Uranian moons would show some goofyiness — which is the case with Neptune, and Neptune is even more massive.
Actually, there is a third possibility — the atmosphere of Uranus could have arrived later, perpendicular to the plane of the solar ecliptic; the arrival of such a mass could have knocked Uranus into a different orientation, and while it could seem like a one in a kajillion shot, it would explain the (mostly) undisturbed orbits of the moons and may be the best explanation.
Of course, this assumes that the moons were in orbit around Uranus in the first place.
A fourth possibility is, previously the moons were in orbit around a gas giant; the whole works bumped into Uranus, which was just the solid core of what exists today. Some of the original moons were lost because they were on the business end of the transaction, but the gas giant would have been less massive and therefore the moons would have been further out.
And of course, some of them might have been lost anyway, and wound up as part of the core.
And that could mean that the proto-Uranus got its axis tipped right then, if it hadn’t been before.
A fifth possibility is, the Uranian moons were not around at the time of the axis getting tipped, but were acquired later, through capture, and still a long time ago. Or perhaps, the capture of the moons is what tipped the axis in the first place. Aha! ;’)
But I'll have to say that the modern day Beavis and Butthead take might actually be a little less perverted than the ancient mythology. lol
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