Why venus has no moons

That is what happened in the case of Venus' moon, which was weighed up and found to be empty. In the history of science, there are many other examples of scientists seeing something that does not exist. For example, in the latter half of the 19th century, there was much interest in the small planet 'Vulcan', which was supposed to be found within Mercury's orbit. The planet was seen more than times, yet Vulcan has no more reality than the Venus moon.

However, there are differences between the two historical mistakes, because while the temporary belief in Vulcan was justified by a difference between observations and calculations, a so-called anomaly, this was not the case with the Venus moon.

Astronomers in the 19th century considered Vulcan real because they wanted to solve a scientific problem that only found a real solution with Einstein's general theory of relativity in By comparison, there was no particular reason to believe in Venus' moon; or even, for that matter, not to believe in it.

For a long period of time, there were just astronomers who thought they could see it and were perhaps a little too quick to interpret the luminous spot in the telescope as a moon. A full account of the history of the Venus moon can be found in H.

Translated by Stuart Pethick, e-sp. Read the Danish Version at Videnskab. Read about new methods for managing stress in working life. Eventually it escaped Venus' gravity and wandered off into space. The same thing is happening to our moon , according to BBC News , although the process will take billions of years. Scientists believe that Venus was struck a second time.

This time, the object struck the planet from a different direction, so hard that it reversed the planet's rotation. On Monday at the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena, California, Caltech undergraduate Alex Alemi presented models created with David Stevenson of Caltech that suggest Venus was not only slammed with a rock large enough to form the Moon, the event happened at least twice.

According to Alemi and Stevenson, in models of the early solar system it is nearly impossible for Venus to avoid a big hit. Most likely, Venus was slammed early on and gained a moon from the resulting debris.

The satellite slowly spiraled away from the planet, due to tidal interactions, much the way our Moon is still slowly creeping away from Earth. However, after only about 10 million years Venus suffered another tremendous blow, according to the models. Provided by Universe Today. Citation : How many moons does Venus have? This document is subject to copyright.

Synthesizing nanomaterials from nature's blueprints 10 hours ago. Relevant PhysicsForums posts Temperature of gas in a cluster 3 hours ago. Question about Kuiper belt 4 hours ago. Our Beautiful Universe - Photos and Videos 22 hours ago.

Level of details in prime focus vs eyepiece images Nov 10, Maximum mass of a neutron star Nov 09, Related Stories. How many moons does Earth have? Jul 05, Dec 05, Apr 15, Venus, Jupiter, moon offer dazzling night show Feb 23, Mar 04, Apr 02, Recommended for you. SpaceX crew launch marks space travelers in 60 years Nov 11, Nov 10,