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Obliquity Variability of a Potentially Habitable Early Venus

J. Barnes,B. Quarles,J. Lissauer,J. Chambers,M. Hedman

Published 2016 in Astrobiology

ABSTRACT

Venus currently rotates slowly, with its spin controlled by solid-body and atmospheric thermal tides. However, conditions may have been far different 4 billion years ago, when the Sun was fainter and most of the carbon within Venus could have been in solid form, implying a low-mass atmosphere. We investigate how the obliquity would have varied for a hypothetical rapidly rotating Early Venus. The obliquity variation structure of an ensemble of hypothetical Early Venuses is simpler than that Earth would have if it lacked its large moon (Lissauer et al., 2012), having just one primary chaotic regime at high prograde obliquities. We note an unexpected long-term variability of up to ±7° for retrograde Venuses. Low-obliquity Venuses show very low total obliquity variability over billion-year timescales—comparable to that of the real Moon-influenced Earth. Key Words: Planets and satellites—Venus. Astrobiology 16, 487–499.

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