Saturday, August 26, 2023

The chaotic-rotation planet

They're still working on TRAPPIST 1; b and c being known (now) and d being skippable. b,c,d are presumed in 1:1 that is Tidal Lock; hence why they're airless, like Prox-b. Gilster a few days ago flagged two papers on spin-orbit resonance. Perhaps e and f might not be in Tidal Lock.

I must point out the effect of an exomoon - if it be large-enough, like 1+% the planetary mass (I'm unconcerned here with this moon's own habitability). We are reminded that these blighters can stabilise a planet's rotation. b,c,d are too close to each other and too resonant to sport a moon. My hopes are dim for e [REASON 12/1 this system looks like it did at formation, no chaos no Theia]... but I wonder about outermost f.

If a heavy moon be rare, at least for TRAPPIST's tightly-bound planets, then e and maybe f could have chaotic rotation. Sometimes they're locked; sometimes they're Mercurylikes. Sometimes they flip around. This jerking-around of the rotation will keep the star from streaming off the planets' atmosphere.

They might, even so, be nasty places for life to evolve and stay evolved. The higher-optical freqs generally are too low for chlorophyll. So, er. Purple world?

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