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Old 11-14-2017, 05:10 PM   #8
a humble lich
 
Join Date: Jun 2017
Default Re: Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton

OK, first as mentioned above the gravitational interactions between Earth and Venus means that this isn't a stable orbit, especially with the new Venus orbit being so close to Earth's. You are going to get a close flyby of the two within 470 years. At closest approach the force of gravity between the two planets will be greater than the force of gravity between them and the sun, so the orbits will definitely be significantly changed. (If I didn't make any math errors). If you make the period of Venus exactly the same as Earth it will last longer, but eventually perturbations from the other planets will cause the orbit to shift slightly and you will again get a close encounter. For longer term stability, I'd recommend moving Venus away from the Earth--perhaps give it a period of 300 days. It will be warmer, but much more stable.

As far as the tides goes, if I remember correctly the strength of tides is proportional to m/r^3. So since the Triton remnant has about 1/7 of the mass of our moon, it the same distance the tides will be 1/7 as strong. If you move Triton closer so that its period is only 15.25 days, then by Kepler's third law it will be at a distance of 0.62 that of the moon, so the tidal effect will be (again if my math is right) about half of what the Earth-Moon system has.
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