From: avatar (avatar@renegadeclothing.com.au)
Date: Sat Feb 01 2003 - 20:30:25 MST
Mike Lorrey writes:
Yes, and it wouldn't really take that large a moon to allow an
> Earth-like environment. Keep in mind our atmosphere is so thin because
> of billions of years of carbon sequestration that followed an impact
> event that stripped much of earth's original lithosphere, which now
> forms most of the moon. Saturn's moon Titan has an atmosphere several
> times denser than ours, and this is WAY out there, where the surface is
> thick with precipitated atmosphere.
Hold on. I thought our atmosphere was retained because of our magnetosphere (preventing the solar wind from stripping it) [possibly in turn due to our liquid iron core surrounding the solid iron core]. It's complicated because of internal radioactive mechanisms and an active planetary matrix cuasing some production of atmosphere, combined with water dumped from meteorites.
I'm been trying to get a handle on this with Earth vs. Venus vs. Mars and the varying conditions. Also of course as Mike says the influence of the x-body and the proto-Earth body that resulted in the Earth-Moon system and its chemical peculiarities.
All I can say is that some sources claim the atmosphere would have been nearly completely stripped away, however it was generated, by the solar wind were it not for the active magnetosphere.
I am still trying to read upon on the explanations for the pecularities of Venus.
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